This morning, Heather and I got up in the middle of the night to drive to Baton Rouge for our second Rocketchix triathlon. Honestly, neither of us had done much training so we were kind of not sure how we’d end up doing.

I hadn’t given a ton of thought to my preparation for this race, either, and kind of threw everything I’d need into a bag last night. (Spoiler alert: I didn’t forget anything.)

We arrive at the LSU Natatorium and go to pick up our packets. While Heather is applying the sticker to her bike, I notice it’s a different color than mine. And it says “Rocketchix Duathlon.”

Uh oh.

Turns out Heather accidentally registered for the duathlon instead of the triathlon. I was actually kind of jealous of her, because the swim for this triathlon was going to be the longest so far, and like I said, I hadn’t done much training for it. (A few weeks ago I did 350 yards in the pool with long breaks between each length, but that’s about it.)

There were a lot fewer participants this year than last year, so it didn’t take nearly as long to get in the pool. And I’m happy to say that while I wasn’t swimming particularly fast, I also didn’t panic and flail around like I had in the past. I even passed a few people!

While we were lined up, I just willed myself to stay calm and channel Dori. “Just keep swimming.” So that’s what I did, and it worked out fairly well. (I didn’t drown.)

Once out of the pool, I got through transition pretty quickly, and I was on my bike (with the seat set at the proper height) before too long. I get so focused on the swim for these races that I forget that being on a bike for 12 miles is…kind of boring. I am using George’s bike, which is not exactly meant for speed.

But the bike portion also went better than last year. I got into a groove, and it went by pretty swiftly. (Well, swiftly for me.) I even passed a few people! That’s a first for me.

The next transition was easy – just throw off the helmet, really, and I was off and running quickly. Well. “Running.” Only two miles. That’s nothing. But it seemed to last forever. I ran when I could (not much) and walked a lot.

Selfie during the run! Mike the Tiger is somewhere back there.

I was looking at my watch a lot, hoping I could beat my time from last year, even taking into account that the swim was nearly twice as far this time. I wasn’t even daring to hope that I could beat my run time, since my legs were just worn out and it was pretty hot.

Finally, the finish line was in sight, and I was done, with Heather and Tee and her sister and my friend Jane cheering me on. Woot!

When I picked up Heather this morning, we realized we bought matching shirts at Academy yesterday. Aren’t we adorbs?

Now, the important part. How did I do?

Swim: My pace was 3:23/100m…slower than last year, but faster than the 3:27/100m I swam at Girl Power in September. I’ll take it! (Also, it’s so much harder to swim a 50m pool than a 25 yard one.)

Transition 1: Last year was 5:12, this year was 3:15. Nearly two minutes shaved off!

Bike: Remember last year, I neglected to raise my seat to the proper height, so I had a hard time. I’m happy to say with a higher seat, I finished 12 miles in 57:01, compared with 1:01:08 last year. (Still slow as molasses. Oh well.)

Transition 2: 1:40 last year, 1:29 this year.

Run: I was positive this was going to be at least a couple of minutes slower. I was stunned to see I finished the run faster! 23:44, compared to 24:06 last year. Woot!

Finish time…10 seconds faster than last year!

So overall, a pretty good race. But you know, I think I’m done with triathlons. It’s not triathlon’s fault. I am never going to improve a ton at swimming, and I’m not willing to invest in a faster bike for that portion. I could probably get faster at running, but I already run races, so I think I’ll just stick to that.

I may have committed to running a half marathon in October, even though I’d sworn them off. Ha! We’ll see.