Hijacked from another

So, I havent posted for a while, although I have tons of ideas running around my brain, so I thought I would copy something I wrote for another blog and add it here. This is about my first triathlon super sprint I did on Mothers Day this year. 

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So, I was having lunch with a few girlfriends back in March and one of them mentioned doing the trigirl in May. It sounded really fun, so I signed up. I chose the first timers wave, I didn’t want to get manhandled (or rather woman-handled) too much this first time out.


 The weeks before the event, I set out to train as best I could. In between CrossFit workouts, I spent my days off riding, running, and going from bike to run as often as I could. The day of the race, I woke at 4:45am, got in the car with the husband and kids and off we went. We arrived at 6am, giving me a good 45 min to set up transition, double check transistion, and warm up. Heading down towards the start I was freezing. Looking at the water, I wondered why I thought this may be fun. Once the air horn blew, we were off. 


I was about midway deep in our wave of 98. We got in the water and I figured, “lets go”, so I scrambled my way in between the crowd, getting to a position where I didn’t have anyone directly in front of me. The water was choppy and my nice pretty freestyle was not happening. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t stay in a straight line, so I did what I could and swam breaststroke for the majority of the swim. That was hard. Fortunately, one of the many ways to volunteer at this tri is to be a water-helper-outer person. I am sure there is a more formal name, but these are the guys who are waiting in the water on the boat ramp to help pull you out at the completion of your swim. I was really glad to see him. He pulled and I was out. Whew! Off to transition and the bike I went. 


 The bike leg was fun… lots of downhill… exhilarating… then we had to go back up…. not quite as exhilarating… but such is life. By the completion of the bike, I had calculated that my time goal was within reach as long as I just kept going. 


Transition from bike to run was entertaining. My legs were jello and it took a good half mile to feel normal again. My feet were wet too. This was my hardest leg. So close to finish, yet so long to go. I had to keep repeating to myself over and over, “Not much longer”, “breathe”, “I can do this”. And I did. 


 I had a little comic relief on the way to the finish. I could see the finish line banner and I was going to give whatever I had left. I started to pass and someone and shouted “on your left” . When I got even with her, she looked at me, yelled “You are not passing me!” and she picked up her pace (I think i will see the image of her for the rest of my life... priceless). I told her we will finish together, hard, holding nothing back. And we did, she held to my pace for a while, but did fall back. I finished strong. I didn’t achieve my time goal, but got darn close. I am proud of my performance. I have only been training seriously since November and only recently added a strength regimen.  I am excited to see how much I can improve in the weeks and months ahead.  I am currently shopping for a road bike and looking forward to my next sprint tri in October.