I did it. I completed a triathlon. My goal was to do it in under 2 hours, pushing myself the entire time and not walking at all during the last leg-the run. And I did it! There is no feeling quite like the overwhelming sense of emotion that floods over you as you cross the finish line completing a goal that you have set aside months to train for. It is quite euphoric. So much so that I am already thinking about doing a little bit longer triathlon next year. But first, let me recount some of my adventures yesterday.
My alarm sounded at 4am. After a quick shower and a bagel breakfast, I packed my things and was headed off with my great friend and tri buddy, Jessica. We arrived at the race site around 5:40 to set up our transition area. The transition area is where you make the switch from swim to bike (T1) and then bike to run (T2). All the experienced triathletes carry everything they need for the transition area in a bucket, so then once everything they need is set up, they can flip the bucket over and use it as a stool when putting their sneakers on. I, of course, am not an experienced triathlete, but Jessie was made privy to this genius idea in her tri training group, and so with our buckets in tote we set up our transition area.
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| Me at my transition area all set up. |
Then, the waiting game began. And I don't just mean the wait for the bathrooms. We were out of the transition area by 6:30am, but since we were both in the last wave of athletes, we didn't start until 7:40am. In an effort to not completely stress ourselves out as we waited for our wave, we took a seat on a park bench and began to chat about life as we nourished ourselves with bananas and caffeine loaded energy drinks. Then it was time. We headed over to the starting line. Each wave of girls walks into the water and awaits the countdown to begin. So being in the front of the pack in the water is a huge advantage as it gives you a few second head start because you start farther out. Using my Black Friday line maneuvering skills, I was managed to find myself at the front of the pack.
Since this was in Oneida Lake, I could touch bottom for some of the swim. I used this to my advantage as I pushed off the bottom for some extra propulsion. While it did help my time and not to tire as much, I did slice my feet up on whatever was at the bottom of that lake. As I was swimming, it seemed like this leg of the race would never end. I later found out that it was a 800m swim instead of the 600m swim that was advertised and that I had trained for. This resulted in my swim time (00:16:11) being about 4 minutes more than I had planned. This meant that if I was going to beat my 2 hour self-set goal, that I needed to push it extra hard on the bike.
I was in and out of T1 in 00:04:43 and off on my bike. About 10 seconds out of the transition area on my bike, my shoe lace got caught on my bike and became untied. Luckily, this didn't cause me to fall. While gliding along, hoping not to lose too much speed, I lifted my foot up to tuck my shoelace into my shoe. Doing this I hit my water bottle causing it to flip, shooting Gatorade onto the pavement. Luckily it didn't fall out and I was able to reach down and resecure it. And so with my now 3/4 full water bottle in place and my shoe untied but secure, I began to peddle away. Then, about 5 minutes out, a bee decided to pick me out of the 1047 other lady racers and sting me on the arm! I chose to focus on the race and not the pain in my arm as I stared at my bike clock.
During the bike, there were two other girls in my age group riding about the same pace as me. We would take turns passing each other. Somewhere along the way, Amanda (one of those girls) and I paced ahead of the other. As we rode we made jokes to each other and made a mutual agreement to keep pushing each other as we passed the other. Heading into T2 I was ahead of Amanda. I finished the bike in 01:03: 58 - 12 minutes faster than my test ride! I hopped off my bike (accidentally bumping into another girl... oops) and headed to my transition area. I racked my bike, tied my shoe that had been untied the entire bike ride, and in 00:01:37 I was off on the run.
Running along a curvy road by the lake was difficult as I had no idea where the turn around was. Around every curve I thought, "It is around the next one", but it wasn't their either. Again on the run course, Amanda caught up to me and we played the passing game again. At about mile 2 we began to run together with another lady on the course pushing ourselves to break the 2 hour goal. Then as we hit the water stand about .5 miles from the finish line, I started to pick up my pace and the other two remained behind. I sprinted through the tunnel of cheering friends and family of racers to finish the run in 00:30:40. As I crossed the finish line my time was 1:57:09. I did it.
After the Race:
After hanging out with Jessica and celebrating our victory, I headed for the drive home from Syracuse. About 15 minutes from home, as I pulled up to a stop sign, my car stalled out. After a few tries I was able to get it restarted and kept heading home. The engine then died while driving. After a few more short drives, it died again and I was stuck about 5 minutes from home. So, after waiting for a tow for 40 minutes while completely exhausted, I arrived home an hour later than I should have.
... At least I didn't smell any worse than the tow truck guy. :-D
