I Rock

Let's just be honest...I'm feeling pretty good about my triathlon performance. Not only did I finish, I beat my goal. My time was 1:34:19. My 0.25 mile swim took just under 8 minutes, my 15 mile bike took 54 minutes, and my run took about 28 minutes. And for those of you mathematicians out there who think these numbers don't add up, it took me about 3 minutes to transition from my swim gear to my bike gear, and about 1 minutes to switch from biking to running.

I would just like to put in alittle thanks to everyone who prayed for sun. Your prayers worked. The weather in Seattle has been drizzly and overcast for about 2 weeks before the triathlon, and on Friday it was raining pretty hard. But on Saturday it was sunny and beautiful! I couldn't have ask for a better day for an event like this. Of course the water was still really cold (59F) and the grass was basically mud, but the the sun was out and it was warm (and I actually got sun burnt). Then on Sunday, it rained again. It's like God threw one sunny day in there just for me. :-D So thanks for praying!

The triathlon started at 7am. I got there about 6:15 so I could haul all my stuff from the car and get my transition area set up. Among triathletes, transitions are considered the 4th discipline because it is also included in your time and there is alot of skill involved in transitioning well and quickly. For instance, after the swim, alot of people won't put on socks because it's hard to put socks on wet feet and it just takes too long (I wore socks). That said, I wanted to get there early enough so I could have time to set up my transition area efficiently.

Although the race started at 7am my group (females 29 and under) didn't actually start until around 7:30 (each "heat" of 50 people starts 3 minutes apart to avoid major congestion). The way they time the race is that everyone wears a timing chip around their ankle. That way they know exactly when you start, and they can accurately record your splits.

As I mentioned earlier, the water was really cold. I did alittle warm up swim and I was fine except for my face. One of the gals next to me suggested that you can put your tongue on the roof of your mouth in case you get a brain freeze. Luckily I didn't need to use this strategy. I just swam with my head above water for the first 50 yards or so, at which point my blood was flowing and my adrenaline was up so I was OK. After the swim I ran out of the water while unzipping my wetsuit and pulling the top half off. I ran into the transition area, finished taking off my wet suit (not very easy), pulled on my shirt, socks, shoes and helmet, grabbed my bike and then I was off.

The bike portion went pretty well. I had biked the route before so I knew where the hills were and that was encouraging...I had done it before so I knew I could do it again. The only thing that really surprised me was that my toes were really cold. I don't think they recovered from the swim until after I started running. Anyhow, after the bike portion I ran my bike to my rack, took off my helmet, grabbed my hair scrunchy and ran out. The run portion was definitely my weak link. However, I ran most of it (which I wasn't expecting to do) and I finished in under 30 minutes (which I also wasn't expecting to do). So I think the run went OK...especially considering I've never run 3 miles straight in my life.

It also turned out that Caleb's parents were in town for the weekend, so Caleb and Kent came and took some pictures of me while Cheryl stayed home and played with the kiddos. Unfortunately Caleb didn't get any pictures of the swim, but he got tons of me on the bike and running. Here are a select few:

Here's a picture of some people swimming.

Here I am getting on my bike.

Here's a shot of Kent waiting for me to come riding in.

This is me finishing up the bike portion.

Here I am starting the run.

This is me finishing. I took off my sunglasses because I thought it would make for better pictures. :)

Here I am wearing my medal. As you can see, the weather was amazingly beautiful!

I bought a new pair of running shoes a week before the triathlon because mine were starting to hurt my feet. They were bright and shinny when I arrived Satruday morning, and this is what they looked like when I left. Like I said, there was a lot of mud!

And here's the the T-shirt I got.