March 26, 2006 - Strawberry Fields Triathlon

On March 26, 2006 I competed in the Strawberry Fields Triathlon in Oxnard, CA. I had been training about 5 to 6 hours per week for almost two months. I had been watching my diet very carefully and had lost 6 pounds!

At the beginning of the race the pros went out for the swim and some of them could not make the turn buoy because the current was so strong. The race director decided that if the pros could not do it, then the amateurs could very well drown. So the swim was cancelled. Instead we did this strange run through 400 meters of water that was 3 feet deep. It doesn't sound hard until you do it. But, I did very well and finished the "swim" 3rd in my division, which was my best "swim" ever.

The bike went well as did the run.

Here are the final results:

"Swim" 5:46 - 3rd in Division
Bike 35:59 - 5th in Division ( 19.1 MPH)
Run 22:19 - 3rd in Division (7:26 Pace)
Overall 1:07:22 - 3rd in Division

The Never Ending "Off Season"

After the disappointment of my last race of 2005, I lost my motivation to train. Instead of my usual 4 or five hours a week I started training less and less until I was virtually doing nothing by the end of the year. By the end of January, 2006, I had gained weight and my doctor told me that I had high cholesterol. After my doctor told me this, I decided that it was time to get more serious about my weight and exercise. On February 1, 2006 I weighed 149 pounds, an all time high.

September 11, 2005 South West Regional USAT Championships

Since I was doing so well I wanted to end the season with a bang and decided to go to the regional championships with the hope of placing well. That wasn't what happened. Here are my results:

Swim (1/2 mile) 20:04 16th out of 32
T1 4:30
Bike (12 miles) 43:58 16.38 MPH 11th out of 32
T2 2:09
Run (3 miles) 26:43 (8:54 pace) 10th out of 32
Total 1:37

I placed tenth out of 32 in my division. I just seemed to have run out of steam. It was a disappointing day and a long drive home.

June 26, 2005- Breath of Life Ventura Sprint Triathlon

After my successful Danskin Race I was hoping to do well again in this triathlon. It went very well, and I was thrilled again with a second place award in my division. Here are my results:

Swim 15:43 Fourth in my Division
Bike 45:01 Second in my Division
Run 25:00 Second in my Division
Total 1:25:42 Second in my division, 22nd overall

I was starting to feel like I was getting the hang of triathlon.

June 5, 2005 - The Danskin Triathlon

Although I was now a triathlete, I was becoming a more humble triathlete with each race. I no longer had any excuses. I had the fastest wet suit and Tri-bike that money could buy. If I was slow, it was all me and not my equipment. The morning of the race, I said a prayer and asked God to teach me whatever it was that I needed to hear. Shortly after my prayer, I looked at my stopwatch and it was blank. The battery was dead. How could I compete without my stopwatch? I decided that maybe this was the lesson that God wanted me to learn. (If you haven't noticed already I have a tendency towards obsessing about times, rankings, and statistics. They seem to comfort as well as torment me.) So I went to the starting line without my stop watch.

The Swim
At the start, I looked out at the buoys in the lake. This was a 1/2 mile swim. My heart started to pound hard in my chest. The course looked SO far. I was scared. Could I really swim that far out there? The gun went off, I started to swim. Many times I stopped to rest. Lots of women passed me. The swim seemed to last forever. Finally, I finished. I was just happy to have not drown.

The Bike
There were two laps with some steep hills. The course was 13 miles. On my second lap, my chain came off and I had to stop and put it back on at the bottom of a hill. More women passed me.

The Run
Again this went pretty well I passed quite a few women while running the 5K course.

The Results
This time, I really didn't want to see the results. I knew that I had not raced well. The swim had been slow and my chain had come off on the bike. I was just enjoying having finished, and being at my first all women's' event. It was a very different atmosphere than my other races. I was sitting on the grass at the finish line. It was really inspiring just watching these women get so excited about crossing the finishing line. They didn't seem to care how fast they were. They just seemed to enjoy knowing that they had finished. I was trying to be just like them and just enjoy the race. I felt that God had told me to stop worrying about placing and times, but to just be in the moment. Then they started calling out the top finishers in each age group. While they were doing this I stretched on the grass and continued to watch women being greeted at the finish with finishers medals. What a wonderful event this was! Then I heard my name called, "and in 2nd place Victoria Jones". What? That can't be? It must be another age group, that's a common name. Then they called the first place woman in the 45-49 age group! It WAS me. That was my age group they were announcing. Tears came to my eyes. I finished in second place in my age group. I felt on top of the world. Here are my final results:

• Swim 10th out of 29 ( Time 17:28)
• Bike 2nd out of 29 (Time 48:11)
• Run 3rd out of 29 (Time 24:48)
• Overall 2nd out of 29 (Time 1:34:41)

May 1, 2005 - The Xterra Spring Sprint

I continued to train hoping to finish in the top three in my division at my next race. I started to dream about riding one of those fancy triathlon bikes, instead of my slow mountain bike. I was just sure that if I had one of those bikes I would be fast. On my 45th birthday (April 21, 2005) I bought myself a Cervelo Tri-bike. Now I really was a Triathlete! I was going to be fast!

The problem was that the bike was a little too fast. It felt nothing like my nice stable mountain bike. When I rode it, I felt like the wind was going to blow me over. In short, I was a little afraid of my new bike. I rode it only two times for less than 30 minutes before my race on May 1, 2005.

The Swim
The swim was 400 meters in the bay. I decided to go slow and easy on the swim this time. The swim ended up being very pleasant as a result. My time was a nice slow 9:38.

The Bike
My transition was also slow as I wanted to make sure that I wasn't dizzy from the swim before jumping on my fast bike. (Like I said before I was still a little afraid of this bike.) I knew the bike was going to be SO fast once I got going, so I thought a slow transition wasn't going to make much difference. When I finally got on the bike, it seemed that I really was going fast. I seemed to be passing a lot of people. I knew this was going to be my best race ever.

The Run
The run was hard and I seemed to have a difficult time keeping my initial pace up. My second lap was much slower than my first. My time was 25:49 for 3 miles. It was my slowest run yet in a triathlon.

The Results
I was again very excited to see the results. I thought I could be in the top three this time. Sure my swim and my run weren't that great, but I had a fast bike! Not only that, but I was now 45 and racing in the 45-49 age group. These old women HAD to be a lot slower. Didn't they?

• Swim 8th out of 15
• Bike 8th out of 15
• Run 5th out of 15
• Overall 8th out of 15

Oh well, I guess the bike wasn't the answer. And boy these old women ARE fast.

February 13, 2005-Redlands Triathlon

This was a fun race. It started out with a 5K run, then a bike ride of 10 miles and then a 100 yard pool swim in a HEATED pool. The swim was VERY different than my first triathlon which was an ocean swim.

The Run
The run went very well. Since we ran first, my time ended up being 23:30 which works out to a 7:33 pace. Which was pretty fast. I was very happy about my run, considering my training.

The Bike
Again the bike was a blast. I even ended up passing some guy all decked out on his expensive tri-bike at the end of course. He of course did a double take as I passed him on my mountain bike. I finished the bike with an average pace of 16.4 MPH for 10 miles.

The Swim
I jumped into the heated pool and swam to the end of the lane. At the end of the lane, I went under the rope to the next lane and swam again. I did this four times and then went up the ladder at the end of the last lane and there was the finish, only a few yards from the edge of the pool. My time was 2:10 for 100 meters.

The Results
In this race I didn't compete as an Athena as my 145 weight was too low. In this race an Athena must be 150 pounds or more. ( I found out later that 150 pounds is the usual cutoff.) I competed in the 40-44 age group instead.

When the race results were posted, I had no idea what to expect. When I looked on the board I was fourth in my division! I was thrilled. But, I knew I could do better.

October 18, 2004-The Stress Fracture

Today I was diagnosed with a stress fracture and told not to run for 2 months. It was a very sad day. My triathlete career had to be put on hold until the 2005 season.

September 26, 2004-I AM A TRIATHLETE!

On September 26, 2004, I woke up very early to "get to the race at least one hour before your wave is scheduled to start", just like my "bible" had advised me to do. While waiting for my car at the hotel with the sun coming up, someone asked me if this was going to be my first triathlon. ( I wondered how they knew this.) I said yes. They told me that I would never be the same after today. That competing in triathlons was addictive and that I would be doing more triathlons. I really didn't know if that was true or not. But I had my doubts.

When I got to the race site I understood why I looked like a first timer. I did have a "tri-suit" like my "bible" had suggested, so that wasn't it. But my mountain bike stood out like a sore thumb. Everyone had these incredible bikes with strange handlebars and wheels. They also did look very lean, strong and fit. I had entered the Athena division, since I qualified with a weight of 145. (I thought I would be more likely to get a medal in this division.) So even though I was fit, I had a layer of fat hiding all of my muscles. It seemed to me that all of these triathletes had muscles hiding other muscles!

The Swim
Here I didn't follow the "bible's" advice. I was supposed to get to the outside at the start, since I wasn't a strong swimmer. But since I wanted to "place well", I got right behind the front row. When the gun went off, I swam hard right behind the strong swimmers. Things were really going well! Well at least for the first 100 yards. Then I ran out of oxygen. I decided to do the back stroke. Everyone started to pass me. People started kicking and hitting me as they passed. Hmmm...This is a little frightening. I turned over to do the crawl again. But every time I put my face in the water I couldn't breath. I flipped back over and did the back stroke again. This sequence was repeated over and over again. Until, I FINALLY finished the swim! It was the longest 800 meters I have ever swum. And it was REALLY hard. I finished the 800 meter swim with a time of 19:48.

The Bike
The bike was a blast. It was so much fun I couldn't believe it. Up until this point, I had only competed in running races. And this was so much more fun than running. Since I was in the last wave and had had such a poor swim I didn't have a lot of people passing me so I thought I was doing quite well. My mountain bike was going much faster than my usual 12-13 MPH and I was even passing a few poor soles. I finished the 11 miles with a time of 41:54. A whooping 15.75 MPH! ( I had no idea that that was not very fast until later.)

The Run
Now I was doing what I knew how to do. I passed quite a few people on the run and was now sure that I was doing very well in my first triathlon. I finished the 3 mile run in 23:59. Which I thought was pretty good considering that I had had to swim and bike first.

The Results
I couldn't wait for the results. Surely I must have placed in the top five in my division? The Athena division can't be that competitive can it?

• Swim-23rd out of 34
• Bike-21st out of 34
• Run-2nd out of 34
• Overall-10th out of 34

Well...maybe I am not a fast triathlete. But, I AM A TRIATHLETE! ( And that's all that matters.)

The Beginning

At the beginning of 2004, I was out of shape and decided to start working with a trainer at my local gym. After a few months, I started to see results. I felt ready to start running. I had a running background, so I decided to start training for a half marathon. I completed the La Jolla Half Marathon on April 25, 2004 in 2 hours and 2 minutes. I was happy with this time as I had not had much time to train for the distance. Over the next three months, I competed in a few 10ks, 5k's and mud runs. I even finished third in my division in one of these races. Then I entered America's Finest City's 1/2 Marathon, with a goal of breaking two hours. On August 15, 2004, I ran the first 9 miles of the America's Finest City 1/2 Marathon at goal pace. But my knee was hurting pretty badly. Before reaching the 10 mile point I had been reduced to walking. I felt like crying. My time was 2 hours and 18 minutes. I felt like a failure.

After the disappointment of the 1/2 marathon, I decided it was time to look for a new challenge. I had recently bought a mountain bike and enjoyed riding my new bike a lot more than my running. I looked through Active.com's upcoming events and decided to do a sprint triathlon in Long Beach, California. The swim was 800 meters in the ocean, the bike was 11 miles, and the run was 3 miles. I already could easily bike 11 miles and run 3 miles. All I needed to do was learn to swim 800 meters comfortably. I thought it would be "a piece of cake". The next week, I came in to my training session and proudly announced to my trainer that I had signed up for a triathlon and that I was now a triathlete. She corrected me and said "you're not a triathlete until you have finished a triathlon". I went out and bought a book about training for my first triathlon called "Starting Out". I was a little scared, but mostly I was very excited.

Over the next six weeks, I read my triathlon book religiously. It became my new "bible". I started taking Masters Swim classes. I was the slowest swimmer in the class, but I that did not stop me from showing up. My trainer was impressed with how seriously I was taking this challenge but she warned me. "Don't expect to do well. There will be a lot of very fit triathletes there." I really didn't know what to expect, but I thought she could very well be wrong. Sure I was a little overweight and getting up there in age (44). But in college I had been a very good runner and had even broken the school record in the mile. I just might surprise her. Being a triathlete couldn't be that hard. Could it?