I guess its time

So, Saturday, May 9th, was my triathlon. It's been just over 1 week since I became a triathlete. Let's see if I can recap the race and perhaps this week as the week has been very busy and exciting as well.

So, the morning of the race was mostly uneventful - in the car there I should say. I was nervous but not too nervous, and I wasn't really saying much either. As soon as I stepped out of the car at the race site, I got super nervous. I tried to mask it by wearing jeans and a tank top - meanwhile everyone else was out and about in the triathlon outfits and such. The bikes were crazy, their bags for the race were unlike mine. They were small! I brought a huge duffel type bag and most others had nothing larger than a backpack.

I go into the transition area to find where I rack my bike and set out my gear - looking around at others there helped me decide the best way to lay out everything that I would need. Once setting everything out, I left to go get numbered and get my timing chip. I had my race number written on both arms and my age on my right calf. I took a walk out to the lakeside to go see exactly how far the swim was going to be. Shortly after, it was race time.

After the national anthem was sung, the professionals got into the water. As soon as they were down the stairs, my group was in the water too. We had to tread water over by the green starting buoys for 5 minutes. Because the water was nearly 78 degrees, many people did not wear a wetsuit. I spent too much money on mine not to wear one, so I kept mine on. That helped me to not have to tread water constantly and get tired. I really didn't have to work so I still had energy once it was time to start the race. I went out at a nice relaxed pace in the water as I didn't want to get all tired on the swim and have to do lots of backstroke. My plan worked as I pretty much could do freestyle the whole time. Many times I passed people in the water, in fact, out of 58 in my age group, I was 20th coming out of the water. I knew the swim would be my strong suit and I didn't really practice it that much.

It took me about 5 minutes to go from the swim to the bike as I had to take off the wetsuit and put on my bike shorts and tank top for the race. The bike wasn't that bad, but yet I also didn't feel like I was ever pushing myself that hard - unless it was going up a hill to go over the freeway.  I kept changing gears and everything and I just couldn't make it harder to make me really work to then go faster - so needless to say I was getting passed on the bike. But, my goal for the bike portion was to do all 13.5 miles in under 1 hour and I came in at 59 minutes.

When I came in from the bike I just put the bike back on the rack, took of the helmet and put on a hat and off I went. By this time it was about 9:30 and it was hot. Like low 90s hot. I had already been doing this race for an hour and a half and the run was my least favorite, the part that I was not looking forward to doing. For the first 1.5 miles, I walked nearly all of it. Just before mile marker 2 I started to feel sick. Thankfully at mile 2 there was a water and gatorade stand. I drank all of my gatorade and half of the water. I poured the rest of the water on me to help cool me off. It was almost instant. I felt sooo much better. I couldn't run as much as I wanted to, but I did more than the first half of the race. I came across the Mill Ave bridge and saw Jason and my family at the finish line cheering me on and waiting for me. That gave me the energy to make sure that I finished out the race in a jogging/running pace. 

Crossing the finish line was great. To actually accomplish this when I believe many thought that I couldn't or that I wouldn't and that I would quit part way through because it would be too hard. It was quite the opposite as it makes me want to do another race. Perhaps not right away, but I can do this distance again. I have things that I would like to change or work on. I came in at 2 hours and 13 minutes. I really would like to get it under 2 hours which from looking at other racers times seems to be something realistic that I could achieve. My sister got all excited about the race too and started looking at races that she can sign up for. I may look at signing up for a race with her so we can do it together.

Here are some pictures from the race: