Iron Girl Boulder Tri Recap

Wahoo! I survived 🙂

Now that we’ve established that, let me tell you how the rest of the race went. In short, it was awesome and I had a great time!

I was super impressed with the organization of Iron Girl, and I appreciated how they did both packet pickup and bike racking on Friday night, the night before the race. I always get nervous leaving my bike overnight, but it was definitely nice to not worry about it at dawn on Saturday morning!

I woke up at 4:30 on Saturday cause I had to be sure to get Tals out a few times before I shut her in for the day. After making sure I had everything, I headed over to Boulder and got to the res at about 6am. Parking was super easy and it made me glad–ever since the cluster F at the Cherry Creek Res for the Barkin’ Dog in May, I’ve been a little nervous about a repeat. Luckily, no repeat and I had plenty of time to get organized.

After getting my transition area set up, I took my bike over to the Trek tent to put a new tube in my front wheel. It was completely flat and I didn’t want to mess with hoping it just needed air. Likewise, I was so nervous that I didn’t want to try to change it myself–with my luck, I’d pinch the tube and ruin it 🙂 The Trek repair lady was super helpful and changed it out for me pretty quickly.

 They closed the transition area at 7am and all 800+ women headed down to the beach. The first wave started at 7:30, and they continued to send waves of women into the water every 5 minutes. Cindy’s age group took off at 7:45 but I was in the last group at 7:55. Oddly enough, the group I was in were clumped as “29 and under.” Typically, they separate them out in 5 year increments (i.e. 20-24, 25-29), but I guess the younger category had fewer people. What did that mean for me? First of all,  was the old lady in my age bracket, which really wouldn’t have been a huge deal….except for the fact that there were competitors as young as 13!! Now, don’t get me wrong–I think it is AWESOME that these young ladies are starting so young, but hell! I can’t keep up with a 14-year-old! Way too much energy 🙂

Started out with the swim and I felt good. No big problems, no mental stress. I did feel like I was in a washing machine, however, and the kicking started to get so bad that I think I might have started to kick a few people as well….but I didn’t say that!


Swim time: 10:12

The bike leg came next and like usual, it’s my favorite part of any tri! Since I didn’t really do any training for this race, I wasn’t expecting anything amazing, but I always enjoy the bike. This route encompasses the Neva Loop, a very popular cycling route in Boulder. It goes through the rural portions of the city and has lots of rolling hills but no major climbs. I finished with a smile!

Bike time: 1 hr. 2 minutes (I think it was like a 16.4 mph pace)

The run. Oh my, the run. We all know that I run for the self-torture and I’m not very good at it. However, I’m not usually THIS slow! Of course, it comes at the end of the race which always makes it a little tougher, but it was also wicked hot at this point–probably around 95*. The course was an out and back on the dam road across the reservoir, so it was like TORTURE looking at all of the water but not being able to jump in. The real kicker for me though was that I chose to wear my minimalist running shoes. I’ve been doing all my running in them for the past 3 months, so I didn’t think it would be a big deal–after all, it was only a 5k. Unfortunately, I didn’t take into account how tired my legs would be after the swim and the bike. Something about the additional activity made the minimalist shoes pretty tough on my legs, particularly my calves. My ankles were literally hurting by the turn around, and I knew the rest of the run was not going to be pretty! Sigh. Oh well!

Run time: (although this is embarrassing!) 33 min.

 Overall, with my transitions and everything, my time was like 1 hr. 50 min. Definitely not outstanding, but at least it was in the top half of participants. In general, I loved the race. It was so organized and well put together, and everyone has positive vibes and a great sense of camaraderie. Will I do it again next year?

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