Sunday was my first race of the season for the Challenged Athletes Foundation at the Avia Wildflower Olypmic Triathlon at Lake San Antonio.
Every year they put on a festival and weekend of Triathlon races and I’d heard it was a great event…and it didn’t disappointment, a real party atmosphere combined with some serious racing.
The course was certainly challenging, the 1.5km swim was straightforward since it was in the lake, I completed it in a record time for me of 37mins (5 mins better than previous).
The 40km bike on the other hand was up, down and lots of up again! As you can see from the terrain map not a lot of flat stuff and look at that climb right at the beginning…I saw more than a few people pushing their bikes up that one.
After my 1hr 34min bike came the 10km run, I started out pretty strong and then…faded fast, as you can see the run course is pretty much all up hill and then half way through you really start to climb, that combined with the heat and my heart rate was spiking over 180, so I ended up run/walking parts of the course. That said I still managed better than an average 10 minute mile which was my goal and finished the run in 1hr 1min for a total race time of 3hrs 23mins, a personal best on a very challenging course.
Not only that, but I finished 5th in my class (physically challenged athletes) and got a medal to boot! You can see more pictures of my race on Facebook.
So one race down, next one is a month away, the San Diego Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon. After that will be my first Half Ironman in July. Unfortunately I didn’t get a lottery slot for the Ironman World Championship in Kona this year, instead I’ll be choosing a different Ironman event for the end of the year to culminate my race schedule, looks like between now and then I’ll have a race every month all to reach my fundraising goal of $10,000 for CAF. I’ve reached $2,695 so far, big thank you to my top donors Dwayne, Tennille and Suzuyo, you guys rock! And to all those that have donated $100 or over, Carrie, Darcy, Kelly, Lori, Margaret, Tom, thank you so much.
By making a donation you will directly help a challenged athlete in need.
Help me raise $10,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation