Fruit at the Finish Triathlon

I'm a Triathlete!!! I've done it, one down, one to go! The triathlon I did was the annual one held at my college every spring. I actually volunteered at this event 4 years ago and meant to do it 2 years ago, but didn't know how to run at the time so it didn't happen. It is a sprint triathlon with the following distances: 750 yard swim, 13 mile bike ride, and a 6k trail run. I got up at 4:45am! I think the last time I was awake at that hour was in Vegas but I was just getting back to the hotel from a night at Tao, not getting up! I got all my stuff together and headed north. My college is about an hour from where I live, but it's a really pretty drive and the campuses are beautiful, so it's all worth it.

I got all my stuff into place and checked in. The problem was that we were swimming in the pool (yeah!,) but the men and fast women were going before my slow person heat so I had to wait for about 7 heats to pass before I started. It worked out because I sat with some other alums from my class and we caught up while we were waiting for our turns. Finally more than 3 hours after I arrived on campus it was go time!

First up the swim. My goal here was just to be able to swim the entire thing without stopping at the walls and to not be the last person out of the pool. It's funny I worked for the swim team in college and yet I've never been in the St. John's pool, it's really nice! I'm really glad that I'm use to sharing a lane from my regular pool since we had to share here too. I ended up doing my swim in just under 20 min. which is at least 3 min. faster than I thought I was going to do it! I did freestyle the whole way! I transitioned as fast as I could by drying off with a towel in the hallway and put my crew (I rowed in college too) uniform over the suit. I ran barefoot to my bike, threw on socks, running shoes, and helmet, downed GU, powerade and water before taking off.

The bike course was very pretty! It allowed me to cover some ground that I wished I had when I was up there. There is a great cover bridge that goes over I94 between the two campuses that we went over almost right away. There were some really nasty hills on the first half, but we were told we could recover on the Lake Woebegone Trail. Ha! There was a really strong headwind on the trail so my quads were just burning! The last evil was a triple hill with about 2 miles left to go right after the trail (which is abandoned railroad bed by the way.) It was so evil that I ended up walking up the last bit of the hill. Even though I thought the bike would be my strongest, I was ready for it be over as I headed back into campus! I transitioned really quickly by just taking off my helmet, putting on my visor and have another GU and water.

Oh me no likey running after biking! It's not that my legs hurt it's just that they felt like jelly. It was cruel and unusual punishment to have the run start up a hill! That hill is lethal even though it's gradual. Needless to say I did alright with the run even though it was trail running (not my favorite) and I walked about 5 times (mostly up the last half of hills.) I was the last person on the course because I could hear the 4-wheeler behind me the whole way but I didn't let it chase me, I went my pace and did it right. Even though I was the last one on the course I don't think I had the slowest time.

All in all it was fun even though it was hard work. It was harder than I thought it was going to be, but I'll definitely do another one! I don't know about an Olympic, Half Ironman, or Ironman, but more sprint tris are definitely in my future!

Oh and my official time was 2:11:36, 2nd to last! I also had my fastest paced race run on record even though I felt like I was dragging.