Out of my comfort zone

This last weekend I entered into a sport I know nothing about. I went to the local Fly Fishing shop and picked up a rod and reel. Now I know how those folks that come into the Tri shop and look around like they are completely lost. I had no idea what most of the items in that store were for. I promptly signed up for a two day class in June so I could hopefully get some idea what I was supposed to do with my new toys. I think it will be a good outlet this summer on those light training days leading up to Ironman Canada.

On Sunday I did a Olympic distance race in Eugene called the Duck Bill Thrill. It was put on by the U of O tri team. It was a small but very well run event. The course was great, but WOW the water was cold. I never think to bring a swim cap to races since I never swim in one when I train and they typically provide one at the race. Big mistake on my part! The water at best was low to mid 50's. I jumped in to warm up and my head started pounding. I returned to shore and had doubts about if I could do the full distance or not. Once into the race (2 lap swim) I was seeing stars and trying to ignore the shooting pains in my temples. By the second lap my head was numb, unfortunately so were my feet and my arches were starting to cramp. I tried to focus on my form and made, unfortunately much slower then I would have liked. When I checked my watch (30:14) I figured the course was a little long in addition to me being slow. T1 was pretty quick considering how cold and disoriented I was. Once on the bike I started to warm up. I quickly started catching all of those swimers that smoked me in the water. My HR quickly came up to zone 5 and it felt easy to and comfortable to hold it there. It seemed I always had someone in my sights and I think this helped me to push the entire bike. I ended up with the fastest split by almost 3 minutes. T2 was also quick, but I had zero feeling in my feet. As I started running out of T2 the same guy passed me that had passed me at the HF sprint ("shirtless guy"). He had a shirt on this time though. He was the first of 4 to pass me on the run. My legs were just not there. I did catch one guy though, every little bit helps! I ended up 8th overall and 3rd in my age group. I was 2nd until the last 0.2 of the run. As the guy passed me I got on his heels but could hang on. Very frustrating! But due to the size of the race I would have had to win my AG to qualify for Nationals, and he was over 3 minutes ahead. So, overall it was a good race, I clearly have some work to do to get my running and swimming back though.