1st Splash n Dash Report

All I can say first is... Wow.

I signed up with this being naive thinking, "Oh, this will be a piece of cake!" 750 meters, and a 3k run. Walk in the park.

Boy oh boy, I got my ass handed to me on a silver platter! A big ole piece of humble pie!

Left work at 4:30, got to Adrian's a little after 5 to change. Put on my T3 top, then took it off, after looking in the mirror and seeing the Pillsbury dough boy, except he was blue. Decided to wear a different less form fitting top. Adrian got home with the boys, and we proceeded to Pure Austin. Checked in, and went to the swim start.

There would be two separate swim starts, men and women. There looked to be alot more women than men, and the final results showed this. Women had the option of swimming with the men since they started first. I thought about it, but then realized the few women that were, were pretty fast.

Swim
I put myself towards the front, most of the women weren't even in the water when the countdown began, and I figured that I'd rather get run over than have to swim through slower swimmers. I also assumed since this was a short swim that I would be able to swim pretty fast, it was mostly my ego too. Not gonna lie. I did get to see Amy and Laura before the swim start, and I was planning on trying to start with her, but by the time we were treading water, I had lost her. The beginning of the swim was pretty brutal, but I feel pretty comfortable in the water, and for every punch, claw or kick, I just tried to swim past it. I got caught up with one girl in a blue cap for quite a long time. She was on my right, and kept swimming into me. I had to deal with her until the first turn buoy. I could have let her by, but I was pretty adamant about seeing how fast I could swim this entire swim and wasn't about to slow down, so I kept putting up my fight. As I rounded the first bouy, I started drafting off someone, all I could see where bubbles and feet. I followed these from the first buoy to the back of the swim course. I think it was Amy because I saw Texas Iron in the water, but wasn't sure. Looking at our swim times, I'm almost positive it was her. I remember touching her feet a few times, and confirmed on the run that this was probably 99% her. Thanks Amy :) I felt pretty comfortable, although out of breath, but on the home stretch, I felt ubber fast. I felt like I was passing people like crazy. My sighting abilities have improved. I never felt like I was off course by too much :) On the last portion, the waters seemed to clear and I looked around and noticed I had skipped the very last buoy. For a split second I thought about swimming back to go around it, but I was already about 50 meters away and said screw it. Finished up the swim.

Transition
After getting out of the water, Adrian was there immediately. It felt like forever, but I had no balance to put my shoes on. Even leaning on him, I was a huge wobble butt. I stumbled a good 4 times before I finally got my shoes on. Made it to the top and started my run.

Run
I started out and was immediately breathing like crazy. People were passing me left and right and that was just pissing me off. Every time someone would pass, I'd try and latch on, but my breathing was beyond labored. They had a water station set up, which I know sounds ridiculous for a 3k run, but as soon as I got there, I stopped to walk. As I was walking, Amy came up and passed me! I thought to myself, PERFECT!!! I latched on. I screamed up ahead that I was pacing off her and we ended up running the rest together. We chatted when we could, but I was really struggling to keep my breathing steady. It was awesome having Adrian there to cheer me on. Brandon Marsh was there too, and a few other friends. Pretty cool to have a little cheering section. 2nd loop seemed a bit easier, but felt super long. I could not get my breathing to slow down, and I really felt like I was running at least 8:00's. I felt like my effort was insanely high. 3rd loop was just about hanging on to Amy. The chit chat was none, and towards the end it was taking everything I had to hang on. She slowly started drifting away, until a girl tried to pass me, and I just couldn't let it happen, especially not in front of Adrian. I kicked it in and didn't let her get by. I almost caught up to Amy, but missed it by 1 second. It would have been nice to keep up with her the whole time, but I was thankful to have her to run with :) A big huge thanks to her for being there whether she wanted to or not :)

Final Statistics, and quite shocking...
Time: 31:51
Swim Rank: 46
Swim pace: 1:51 (Wow, swimming PR!)
Run lap 1: 6:15 (10:25/m pace)
Run lap 2: 6:05 (10:08/m pace)
Run lap 3: 5:40 (9:27/m pace)
Overall finish: 58th out of 185
Gender finish: 15th out of 113 - HOLY SHIT! (Correction, 20th woman, 15th not including the women that placed Top 5)

I can't wait to get my running speed back. When I originally saw my running pace, I was upset. How in the world can I run marathons at a faster pace, but given 1.8 miles, I can't run for shit. Doesn't make sense, but in the few words I had with Amy, there's something different with going from swimming to running. Also talking to Adrian, he said the entire event is made to go all out, and I felt it. I'm extremely disappointed with my 10:00 min average, but it was a great and humbling experience. Looking forward to going back and doing better.