Cycling Centric Blog: Sweet Success at "The highest triathlon on planet earth!"

Last Sunday I raced in the Rocky Mountain Silverthorne Triathlon, also known as the highest triathlon on planet earth because of the altitude. It should be named the "coldest swim in the world," because that's what the lake swim was. Outside temps were around 40 and lake temp around 65 when we started the race. BURRRRRRR. Seriously. Feels so wrong to be that cold in August. But -yes -it was gorgeous.

The race was listed as olympic, but wasn't really olympic distance -well, except for the run - (lucky me). It was an 800m swim, 20mile bike and 10k run.

I struggled in the water, mostly due to the cold, and didn't really get my race face on me until the second of the 2 laps (video of swim start by neighbor here). When it was time to get ready to bike, my T1 was a total debacle. Check out the vid my neighbor Andy took of me - 2:20 in T1 is not what you want, folks...

So - sufficiently upset with myself by the time I got on the bike, I made up for lost time crushing the 20 miles (55:40) and then thankfully with a smooth and fast T2, I was on the run and resolved to make it my best yet (52:01 for my fastest 10k so far). Once I realized there were only a few women ahead of me I maintained a solid pace (for me) and went for it.

Total time: 2:10:10 --> Enough for my age group WIN and I was the 4th woman overall!

35-39 Age Group podium

After the race I entered a straight-arm wine bottle holding contest and lasted for 5:10 (based on the German Masskrugstemmen, the traditional Bavarian Bier Stein holding contest) ... 'twas almost harder than the race itself. (And believe me, my arms paid for this in today's swim workout -shoulders were FRIED!)