From a shooting star on the ride down to dolphins swimming with the athletes, the Jersey Girl Triathlon will always be one of my favorite triathlons. This race features a bit of everything that makes triathlon magical. Add to it a beautiful sunrise, perfect weather and you're off to the races.
Packet Pickup:
I knew I should have picked my packet up on either Thursday or Friday, but I didn't. Big mistake. I figured how bad could traffic be on a Saturday afternoon? Surely everyone would already be at the shore by 2:00 pm, right? Wrong! Thank you for playing, come again! Traffic on the Garden State sucked as always. I had to get to the Sheraton Hotel in Eatontown NJ. Bumper to bumper traffic even into the late afternoon. Never doing that again!
They had a small room for packet pickup with various vendors selling their ware. I got my packet and tee shirt and headed home. One disappointment is the tee shirt. It's a men's cotton tee shirt and just not something that I'll ever wear. I hope they eventually change to women specific shirts, considering it is a female specific triathlon. Hint hint Doug.
Race Day:
Left my house super early this year (3:45 am) and arrived at Long Branch by 4:50 am. I had absolutely no trouble finding a convenient parking spot and I even picked up a bagel and coffee along the way. Not that I was really hungry, but what the hell. It killed 5 minutes of my time.
I was one of the first to get into transition and was able to rack my bike close to the edge. The 45-49 year old wave had 64 participants and was largest size age group. After racking my bike and setting all of my gear up, I left transition and enjoyed my bagel and coffee. Since I was bored sitting my car, I went back into transition and realized there was only one person doing body marking. Hey dude you have an extra marker, throw one my way. I ended up body marking for over an hour and killing some time. Plus I met a bunch of really nice women. It was a win-win in my book. Transition closed at 6:30 am, so I grabbed my swim gear and headed off to the beach. I kept the marker :)
The Swim:
I was in the 4th swim wave and headed towards the front of the pack. Look at me! I would have never considered doing that last year. I pulled my goggles down and boom, they snapped in half. I was like "what the hell"? "30 second" the race director yells. I have NO time to get another pair of goggles. I try snapping the nosepiece and goggle back together, and somehow I get it to stay. But now the damage is done. I am relatively freaked out that my goggles are going to snap apart during the swim and my contact lenses are going to say "bye-bye" and float away into the sea. That should make for a very interesting bike ride.
"5, 4, 3, 2 1"...in we go. I only noticed one medium sized wave to deal with and before I know it, we were swimming towards the first buoy. I was swimming with my head up and pretty sure that my goggles were going to snap at any second. Cautiously, I put my face into the water and yes, the goggles held together. I swam across from one buoy to the next, sighting every few seconds. I turned the exit buoy and saw a friend who was a swim angel:
Me: "Hey Brian. Lovely day for a swim".
Brian: "HEY! It sure is the perfect day for a triathlon. Did you happen to notice the dolphins swimming with us"?
Me: "Yes I did and it was pretty neat. Ok nice chatting with you. Gotta go, bye".
And that was it, I made my way out of the water with a couple of waves pushing me out. My goggles held up and I was happy. I was also happy it was a short swim just in case the goggle decided to blow. I ran up the beach and into transition.
T1:
I ran into transition knowing that Lexa was racked in section 4. Interestingly enough, I had laid my bright orange beach towel over my saddle so that I could quickly grab it and wipe my feet down. What I didn't realize at the time was that my bright orange towel was a beacon for me to find my bike since every single bicycle looked exactly the same. I'll be hanging my bright orange towel over my saddle at every triathlon from now on. I wiped my feet, put my socks, shoes, helmet and sunglasses on, grabbed my bike and ran out of transition as quickly as I could. My water bottle was already in the cage so I was good to go. My friend Jenny was working the transition area and gave me an inspirational shout out.
The Bike:
For the first time ever, I REALLY, REALLY enjoyed the bike portion of the triathlon. I had my bike set to an easy gear so as soon as I got on, I was moving pretty quickly. I realized within the first 1/2 mile that I was going too fast so I tried to slow down a bit. I knew I was somewhat rattled from my goggle experience but I had to put it out of my head. Which I did.
I settled into the bicycle course and simply enjoyed the ride. Since I was in an early heat, there weren't too many women on the road. Most of the people stayed to the right, with the exception of a few. I've learned how to yell "ON YOUR LEFT" really loudly and that seems to help. The roads are open to traffic, so you have to make every effort not to get in the way of other cyclists and cars.
I had no idea how fast or slow I was going, but I felt really rhythmic and comfortable. My new Cobb bicycle saddle (JOF Randee) is fantastic and my RedShift Aero Bar System worked great. I felt smooth and comfortable. Since it's a very flat bicycle course, I was able to ride in aero position throughout most of the bike course. I watched a 28 year old go whizzing by and I just had to give my respect to her.
The bicycle course is a relatively easy out and back course. This year I didn't notice as many flat tires as I did last year. But it also rained last year and I know you tend to get more flat tires when the road are wet. The bicycle portion was over before I knew it.
T2:
I dismounted my bike and ran back into transition. This time I left my bright orange towel hanging over the rack so I was able to find my spot in a flash. I racked my bike, ripped my helmet and cycling shoes off and got my sneakers on. I grabbed my bib belt and snapped it on as I ran out of transition. I put Lock Laces on my sneakers so now I don't have to tie my sneakers. That saves a ton of time.
The Run:
I ran out of transition and was surprised that my legs didn't feel as funky as expected. You know, baby calf or rubber legs. The run course had been changed this year because of on going construction. We ran up one way along the boardwalk, turned around, ran back, passed the transition area and then continued towards the other side of the transition area. It was a tour de Long Branch. It was still a 3 mile run but for some reason the new course felt more challenging this year than last year. Or maybe I'm not remembering the suck from last year. That's always a possibility. I knew my run time wouldn't be as good this year as it was last year simply because I'm not training as much with everything going on with Tom. But I did my best on the run and just kept telling myself to try and hold on until the end. "You can slow down a bit if you need to, but don't you dare stop and walk". I just kept repeating this to myself. Somewhere around mile 2 was where I was hurtin for certain. I went out too fast at the start and I thought I was on the verge of falling apart. I held it together somehow and crossed the finish line. No stopping and no walking. Once again, I was a Jersey Girl!In Conclusion:
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