Triathlon

Alright, for all those of you waiting with baited breath...here is the full story of my first triathlon competition.
First of all, for everyone who doesn't know, I did this as a fund raiser for the Jon Lacina Memorial Art fund, and thanks to some VERY generous friends, family and co-workers, we raised over 1500$!! Thanks everyone!

So, the week of June 2-5 was absolutely gorgeous. Sunny, not too hot, no humidity, each day dawning crisp and bright. Ideal conditions really. Then Saturday night, leading into the race, the rain came. Think- Ark. The pool overflowed and flooded the yard (that is 6 inches of rain in 8 hours). Winds 20-25 miles/hour.

I am lying in bed thinking...this is the single worst idea that I have ever had.

I rise at 5:30, along with all the kids. I put Julianna back to bed, Rob goes into rock Nathan. I head downstairs, decide to bring a old towel, some wegman's bags and my raincoat. Collect my stuff and I am off to the races.

I get my DD coffee/bagel sandwich, get to Pittsford HS around 6:20.



Transition area closes to set up at 7, bike to be on rack by 6:45. Unload bike and bag, trudge to set up area (get soaked) and get set up. Put bike on rack, plastic bag on seat, over helmet/glasses/etc. Shoes and socks for each part double bagged in neat row under bike. (luckily I had thought to bring a second pair of socks for run). Could have sold plastic bags for money if I had brought extra. Many athletes looking at them with envy.

There is a 2 inches of standing water in transition area. Sigh.

Go get timing chip and marker applied to arm. Head back to car (my start time is 7:55 as the swimmers start every 15 seconds). Now in car, freezing, sitting on towel, finishing coffee. Instead of getting lighter it is actually getting darker, occasional thunder rumbles. Text Rob to stay home and not bring kids out in this weather.

This is what the race officials are wearing....full rain suits. She was also smoking, so that says something, although I am not sure what.



Decide to head into the pool where at least it is warm.
Remove shoes, extra clothing, coat, etc...make a mad, muddy dash to the pool. Realize that I left my swim cap in car. Look out the door, small hail has joined the 50 degree rain. Decide it is just not worth it.
Wait my turn in relative warmth.

Maggie and Suzanne were there from the beginning...Maggie yelling "girl power" and such. She also noted due to my miscued start time (ie, way too slow an estimation on the swim) that "Aunt Loralei is going to swim over that guy". Which I did.
I passed 10 people in 300 yards, each 20 seconds apart.
Hum...me thinks I need to estimate better.


Then, off to the bike.
Lucky, it is only drizzling at this point, with thoughts of stopping.
I transition, and I am off on the bike!
So, I took it a little slower that probably could have on the bike, but to my credit there with (1) several people with flats...a common problem in the rain and (2)VERY slippery roads...one women was taken away in an ambulance after a slide out on a turn.
I was passed by only 2 people, and passed many others.
The rain is officially stopped now.
The high point being when I passed the person with #103 (I was 223), which means that she started 30 minutes before me!! There were lots of people on mountain bikes (tired already just thinking about it) and with the weather I had puddles in my shoes and didn't drink enough because I was afraid to let go of bike handles too much. Many people with tribars, almost all of them were not using them do the slipperiness of the roads.
Here is me finishing the bike.




















And what comes next...oh yeah...the RUN.























At this point Rob and the kids are there and Julianna yelling to me. I changed shoes (and socks thank god) and headed off. (side note: Adam, you are not even kidding, your legs feel really weird going into the run, like jello with rubber bands. I did a few training bike/runs and was still unprepared.)

Here is me starting the run:













And most importantly, here is me at the end!!










I ran the whole way, held my own and finished in a very respectable 1:43:03. This makes me 153rd (out of 262 completed), 34/112 among the women (wohoo! top 1/3), and 17/39 in my age group. (The winning woman: 1:15:00...I am along way from that!) Also, my transitions were slow probably b/c of the changing of the socks thing...(still worth it).

Here is my breakdown:
Swim 6:52 (with multiple stops to avoid running over people and drowning them and being unable to do 1/2 the flip turns due to this)
T1: 2:32 (includes running to transition including stairs, opening baggie burritos with dry socks/shoes, running bike to mount point, etc)
Bike: 56:51
T2: 2:50 (oh, second socks and opening bag for dry shoes...so worth it. I would like to note that my neighbors running shoes were FULL to the brim when he arrived to T2. That sounds like literally water torture to me. Also I admit, I ran out the wrong exit and had to turn around, 30 seconds lost there!)
Run: 33:58 (so slow, so plodding, but DONE).

I would like to point out that in my age group, my swim had a faster split than 11 people head of me, (one of whom swam in 11:20...she must have been going backwards) and my bike was faster than 8 people ahead of me. Which serves to illustrate how slow a runner I am. And, if I had no issues with passing/etc, my "training" swim was faster than anyone in my age group.

Also, literally minutes after I finished, the rain restarted and continued for the next 2-3 hours. So, I really managed to thread the window of "no rain" and the cool weather is certainly better than 90 degree heat.

Overall, it was AWESOME, and I totally plan to do it again, probably the Canadaguia one in the fall (Sept 19th) which is a fund raiser for hemophilia, and has the option of a sprint and also a full Olympic distance (0.9 mile swim (open water), 25 mile bike and 10 K run).

http://fingerlakestriathlon.com/events_information.asp

I'll keep you posted!!

Here is my cheering squad!! You can see that they had brought along a cow bell, and Maggie is rocking some serious fashion. You can't save the sparkle for Sunday as they say.
Julianna is rocking the tights/boots/miniskirt combo, which is quite a look, and the tank top (which she thinks is appropriate for any situation.)