Emmett's Most Excellent Triathlon

My husband started a post about my race last week in Emmett, and I've patiently waited, and waited to see if he would finish it....but alas, it is still, at this time, only a saved a draft. So I'm taking back my control of the blog, and if we wants to finish his draft and post it later, he's more than welcome to ;)

Last Saturday, August 7th, I competed in my first "real" triathlon. We woke the kids up early, fed them breakfast in the car, and drove to Emmett which is about 30 minutes away. I wish I would have known that the Sprint racers were starting at 9:35 instead of 9:00, but that's alright, it just meant I had plenty of time to mill around, stretch, double check my transition area, and just hang out while my nerves ran wild. The first cannon went off at 9:00 with the male Olympic distance competitors, 5 minutes later the second cannon went off, and the female Olympic distance went off. The first person out of the water, Kevin Everett, was on his bike before I even got in the water.I shimmied into my wetsuit, made my way out into the water, wanted to warm up, but the nerves got the best of me, so I took a few strokes, then went out to tread water with the rest of the group of women that was lining up by the start buoy. It was a deep water start, and before I was ready, the cannon was firing, and I was swimming frantically towards a yellow buoy. I've been practicing open water swims, but nothing can prepare you for the swimming frenzy in the water when your surrounded by other swimmers, getting kicked, trying to swim around people, choking on water, and just trying to survive. To make matters more interesting, my timing chip that was strapped around my ankle wasn't tight enough and I was worried every time I kicked that it was going to slide off. I finally got into a little clearing and I was able to pace with another swimmer. I made the last turn, and sited what I thought was where we get out, but didn't look carefully enough and it was just a dock with orange buoys around it. Cursing at my mistake, I felt like I made a sharp right turn and swam as hard as I could to the finish. Finally I could see others getting out, but they were still wading through water, so I swam as far as I could and pulled in front of a few of them.The bikes were about a 150 meters away from where we exited the water, so I tried to jog over there, fumbling with my wetsuit at the same time. I finally found where my bike was, sat down, strapped on my shoes, put on my helmet, stuck a "gu" in my pocket, gathered up the rest of my stuff and threw in the bag with my number on it, and ran with my bike to the designated "mounting" area.It felt good to be on the bike. I've gained a lot more confidence on the bike since the last race....I've also put it over 300 miles on it since the last race, so I was hoping my training would pay off. The first part of the race was down the canyon, and then along the country roads out in Emmett. Going down was fun, but the terrain was deceiving after that in that we spent most of the race going slightly uphill. Or, we'd climb a small hill, and I'd expect to makeup time going back downhill, but there was no downhill. That messes with ya mentally when you're in a race. I passed a couple of people, got passed by a couple of people, essentially held my place during the bike. It wasn't a fantastic ride, but I did it 5 minutes faster than I did in the Spring, so there was improvement which is all I can ask for.

I dread the run. I know I need to change my perspective about it....I mean, for heaven's sakes, I was a track star in high school, this should be my best part of the race, but it was a struggle for me the moment I put on my running shoes and forgot to take off my helmet. LOL, yup, I started running with my helmet still on then when I realized it and tried to turn back to put it with my bike, I couldn't find my bike. Ack! I still haven't worked hard enough on running right after bike riding, so my legs lock up and seem to scream at me, "we're done!" "we just cycled for 13 miles, enough already!" so it takes a little time before they're fully convinced that we've still got a couple of miles to do. The run part of a triathlon is the most mental part of it all. It seems like its the longest 5k you've ever done, the heat is beating whatever energy it can out of you, and everything wants to tell you to just stop and walk it off for awhile. I gave in and walked once during the first mile, and through both water stations. All I could think about while running was "Thank goodness I don't have to go back for a second lap!!" (the olympic distance does a lap, goes right by the finish line and goes back out for another lap) My goal was to finish the run in 30 minutes, I guess when I didn't come back to the finish line in 30 minutes Marc decided to come out and look for me. He found me on the course with a little less than a mile to go and tried to motivate me. I had nothing left mentally, physically I don't know, I didn't want to go any faster or try to chase down anybody, I tried to pick it up the last 200 meters sprinting into the finish line.
It made it a little easier with the crowds cheering, and my family/friends screaming my name. And then, just like that it was over. I finished, I felt good about it, slightly disappointed that I missed my overall goal time by 6 minutes, but I had improved since the spring spring in every discipline, so I have to be happy with that.
When we got home and had a chance to look at my splits, I was pleasantly surprised to learn I came in 4th in my age division!! My overall time was 1 hour 36 minutes which was 9 minutes faster than the Spring Sprint, not too shabby!