Triathlon

This past year, my sister Stacy has been running for fitness and signing up for runs for motivation, even getting me to do one with her.  I had never been a great runner, but like the convenience of the exercise.  We trained together occasionally, and in August did an 8 mile run through the Balboa park area, during which, I about died trying to run hills (I ended up walking them all after the first couple).  Justin ran it too and did well without any training runs.  My goal was to not let him see me wheezing when we passed on the return lap.  Stacy was a good supporter and promised not to leave me behind.  She stayed with me the whole run...until I sprinted to the finish line (she wasn't expecting my burst
of energy) and I accidentally bopped her nose (lightly!) with my victory arms.  A victory of survival.  I was so happy to be done I didn't even know I did it until she told me on the way home.

After that, I was feeling good but would rather do a triathlon than just a run.  It had been about a decade since I last did a triathlon--before kids.  She wasn't excited about training for it, but I convinced her to sign up for a Sprint Tri, and Justin joined in the fun too.  I was nervous and had only ridden my race bike once recently (for dad's birthday).  At least I had been swimming.  And during one of our beach camping trips, I did a *little* training by running up the beach coast north ~.5 mile, and swimming back south.  I couldn't get Stacy or Justin to go with me and I was a little nervous for them not training for the swim, but then again, Stacy went for a training run that morning and I had opted out of it too.

I feel such a proud sense of accomplishment and power within myself to do something that many people would never even dream of trying.

My Results:  123/449 participants, 24th of 79 in my age group (35-39)
  Overall  1:27:29
  Swim 11:02, T1 2:21
  Bike 43:05,   T2 0:44
  Run 30:21

It is hard to compare my times to the two races I did 10 years ago because the distances were not the same, but I am proud of how I did.

The swim heats were released in order of age groups, youngest to oldest, so Justin started 8 min before of me, and Stacy started 3 min after me.  In my heat, there were 3 of us positioning ourselves at the front of our pack.  I was neck and neck with the girl next to me for the first arm of our triangle shaped swim course, but she was being aggressive and whacking me with her left arm over and over even when I tried to move over, so I just let her go ahead and stayed on her ankles instead.  She practically swam right over slower swimmers.  She was very competitive and kept me competitive too, but I was unimpressed with her sportsmanship.

The bike was harder than I expected, but I just tried to keep my momentum and prayed (successfully) that I wouldn't get a flat tire.  It was a fairly flat course mostly around Fiesta Island and back to the South Shores boat ramp.

I should have taken more time on my T2.  I actually had one of the fastest transitions compared to all the athletes, but I had to stop early in the run to stretch b/c my legs felt like jello.  My run would have been a minute faster if I stretched inside the transition area.  My run would also have be faster if I had trained for it (*wink*)--I had to walk sections of it.

Stacy beat me on the run and on the bike by 2 minutes each, but I beat her on the swim and overall. Justin beat his mom on the run by a hair, and did well on the bike despite having to pull over and re-chain (it had fallen off when shifting).  Justin thought he was ahead of me on the run and I thought he was too, but it turns out I had passed him in the water on the swim and I was actually ahead of him the rest of the race.  The run was 2 laps, so we could see each other pass the other direction and teased each other that we were ahead.

Chris dragged the girls out to cheer us on for the run and that was fun and encouraging for me--the girls cheered, rang bells, and gave us high-fives.