Tri Again!

Again, this was originally on my other blog...I always post there first because it is one of my attempts to make a little extra money as a stay at home mom.  If you want to help me in that endeavor, go to the blog and click on the little button that says "Join this Site".  It's a NO RISK way for you to help me out! :)

I also love having friends with me!

 At this race there were seven members of my church congregation participating.  I neglected to get a picture of all of us together--but here are all the ladies.  (I go to a pretty cool church, what can I say?)

This race was all about conquering my fears.  I had to race in open water again for the first time since being sick and having a major panic attack in the middle of the lake in Colorado Springs.  Plus it was c-c-c-cold this morning!   I made sure to get in the water and go under before the race even started so that it wouldn't be such a shock to the system.

 

But it was still a shock to the system.  Our wave started.  I am a dork.  See if you can spot me...

The water was so cold I couldn't catch my breath.  I felt the panic rising and I just didn't put my  head under and talked myself down.  As soon as I was able to get my heart rate under control, I was able to start swimming just like normal.  The swim was great--the only hard part was that the whole first half of it was directly into the rising sun, which made it hard to spot.  But I was able to do it in 22 minutes.  It felt more like 62, but wow, just 22 minutes.  AND I actually passed quite a few swimmers this time!  I guess my swim conditioning class paid off!

I came out of the water so see my family right there waiting for me.  :)  Ryan helped a bit with my wetsuit and then I was off to transition.

I don't know what it was, but I started feeling really nauseous during the first transition and into the bike.  I quickly sucked down half of a sports gel as I got off my wetsuit and into my biking gear, but I was still worried that it was all coming up at some point on the ride.

The ride wasn't too bad--a little hilly.  I forgot to put my other gel in my shirt, though, so that was kind of dumb!  I tried to make sure I drank a lot more on the ride this time so that I wouldn't get dehydrated during the run.  I did the ride in 51 minutes, which was 11 minutes longer than I did it during my relay last year.  But last year I hadn't just swam across an entire lake, so I'm okay with that.  And once again, I was passing a lot of people!  Woo hoo!

I was still feeling a bit queasy when I got done with the ride, so I ate half a banana as I changed my shoes and then I took off.  Once again, there was my sweet family waiting for me.  Right next to the port-a-potties, which was convenient, because all of that hydrating during the ride had caught up with me.  And I forgot my nutrition AGAIN!!  Maybe next time I will make a sign to put up in transition to remind myself.

 As I was running along, I happened to start talking to a girl that was running about the same pace as me.  We talked about kids and schools and tris and families--it made the time just fly by.  At one point she had to stop to walk and I walked with her, although I could have kept running, because I was enjoying our conversation so much!  She kept saying she didn't want to slow me down, but I made a conscious decision that I would rather run slower with her and have someone to talk to then to run on ahead.

I kind of wish I would have sprinted ahead at the end, though, only because the photo finish would have been better (I let her and her kids run right in front of me and mine.  So you can't see mine.  Oh well, there is always next year.)  So the run was a bit slow--41 minutes, but definitely the most enjoyable part of the race!

And it's funny that I say that because the entire time I was doing the first two legs of the race I was thinking, "What on earth am I doing?  This is crazy!  Why am I doing this? I am miserable!  I hate this!"  And after it is all over I'm ready to go again!!