Girl, thanks so much for sending me this story. I am so proud and inspired by your race story! You look great out there, I just love it!
The night before: I hadn’t slept well in days. I kept stressing about the bike and run portion. Would I have enough energy? Could I complete 16 miles on the bike over steep hills? Did I drink enough water to still hydrated?
Race Day: My friend and I left my house at 5:30am. Thanks to all the books and articles I had read, I over-packed (3 beach towels, ice-packs, shoes, duct tape, scissors…all kinds of random stuff). When we got the transition area we went straight in and starting setting up…only to find out we had to use assigned spots based on our pre-submitted swim times. I had to move my “luggage” and bike…get my number and re-setup.
The Swim: Indoor swim. I love (LOVE) to swim. I was not nervous and tried to help people around me stay calm. We had to race up and down each lane of the pool for a total of 16 laps or 400 yards. Thought I would swim faster, but I couldn’t get used to having guys swimming around, over, next to me. Also, the water was warm (yuck). My time = 10:20 minutes.
T1: It was hard to run to the transition area…especially over the pebbles in the parking lot. My main focus in T1 was dry my feet enough to get socks on without falling over. I opted not to mess with extra clothing and planned to drink sometime on the bike course. I had taken a Claritin the night before but I still expected to have a runny nose while biking, so I stuffed a cotton hankie into my suit. T1 = 1:55 minutes
Bike: The hills…some many hills. My longest ride on the road before this event was 10 miles. 16 miles was going to be a challenge. I tried to take it one mile at a time and just enjoy the ride, breeze, view, and challenge. Many people passed me on this leg. Most were super supportive, cheering me on the hills. I tried (when I had the air) to cheer back. Luckily, I had driven around the course a few weeks beforehand and had a mental image of the obstacles ahead to pace my expectations. They had a great set of volunteers on the course and the police were great at holding traffic for most of the race. I finished faster than my goal of 1:30 hours (actual = 1:25:57). My avg pace was 11.2 miles per hour (there was moments on the hills my pace was barely over 3 miles per hour).
T2: Legs like jello. Still made it through pretty fast. Depressing to see most of the bikes were back on the racks. I kept my bike gloves on, took off my helmet, put on a shirt, drank some warm (yuck) crystal light water and was ready to go. T2 time = 1:14 minutes
Run: …more like walk. My legs felt like jello after the bike. My right shoe insert wouldn’t lie flat, so I took it out and held it for the whole 3.1 miles. I walked the first mile. More people walking and jogging passed me. Finally got some energy back on mile 2, so I decided to start jogging and talking to people. One guy had a great strategy of walking 2 mailboxes, jogging 2. Worked great. Normally, my pace is 20 minutes a mile….that day it was 15.39 minutes per mile!!!
Post race: I was so happy to finish. So happy to finish under the 3 hour cut off. So happy my body didn’t ‘break’. All smiles.
Total race time = 2:28 hours
Comments: I need to practice how to ride my bike and drink water…the act of reaching for and returning the water bottle is still a bit shaky. I don’t think I will ever be a runner…I am okay with that.
Gear Used: Danskin 1-piece (last XXL in stock). Enell sports bra. Wicking fabric shirt and socks. Used the same running shoes for both the bike and run (many people have fancy bike shoes). My Trek 1.1 road bike (it doesn’t have a third front gear…you will wished you paid the extra $100 for them on steep hills). Helmet, bike gloves, bike sunglasses, swim cap and goggles
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Running with regular glasses is just annoying. That’s why contacts are usually my savior for all activities. However, especially in the spring, my eyes are easily irritated by contacts. I also just feel more comfortable in glasses in general.
