Pigman Triathlon 2008

Warning: This post is a little long-winded ;)

I am happy to report that everything went very well this morning at our triathlon. Most importantly, we both made it through safely and uninjured! Josh knocked 9 minutes off his time from last year (impressive!) and I had a good showing for my first time out.

The part of the triathlon that I was probably the most nervous about, the swim, I actually did fairly well with. I had a game plan and I stuck to it and it seemed to work out for me. When my wave hit the water I just ran out and let everyone else dive in and I just watched to see where there was an opening and then I pretty much had a straight path the rest of the way! I tried to stay a little left of the buoy line to avoid all the super fast people going straight down the middle (as I didn't want them swimming over the top of me) and that seemed to work out well. The water was almost balmy today compared to last weekend so the temperature really wasn't an issue. I felt very comfortable in the water and never had any issues (no kicking, swimming over, etc). One lady accidentally swam into my side and she was very apologetic. At least she was nice about it! My time on the swim was almost exactly where it was at during all of my training so that was very reassuring to me.

I then jumped out of the water and ran up the beach into transition. Josh was there very shortly after me (even though he started the wave after me!) and our bikes were right next to each other so we got to exchange a few words. I then started the bike and realized almost immediately that the pace for the day was going to be fast. And I mean extremely fast. There was pretty much no wind to speak of so people were flying. Not even kidding, I was up to speeds above 30 mph at one point in time going down a hill and was getting passed like I was standing still. Only one person tried to run me off the road and I almost didn't make one corner, but it all ended just fine. I felt very strong on the bike, minus the last hill, and was pleased with that performance. My time was 10 minutes faster than it was on that exact same course about 3-4 weeks ago.

Into transition 2, I think I was in shock that the bike and swim had gone so well that I was trying to pace myself and probably too much. I re-tied my shoes, blew my nose a few times, took a few sips of gatorade and basically just wasted too much time in transition. I was afraid that my legs were going to be too burnt from the bike so I was trying to give them a little rest. In retrospect, I now know that I could cut almost a minute off each transition time easily. I think I was trying too hard to pace myself and I'll know better next time :)

I then headed out on the run. The first mile after a bike ride is always extremely hard for me. My feet were numb and I just didn't feel like I had my legs under me. The run was long and hard and I motivated myself to keep going by just saying "I'm not gonna walk, I'm not gonna walk." Seems to have worked... I didn't walk which I'm very proud of. My run time was probably 3 minutes slower than I was planning on but I did it all running so I'm satisfied with that.

All in all, I am very pleased with my time and performance. I beat the time goal I set by 2 minutes and placed in the top 10 (#9) in my division. And even better, I felt good for the most part and was actually having fun while I was doing it!

The most shocking part of the triathlon experience for me was the lack of nerves. I thought I would be a mess, but I was actually very calm and felt comfrotable with my game plan. The day before I was actually more nervous than the day of! Even standing at the start line on the beach all the girls around me were freaking out and I was just like "Whatever, this is what I've trained for the last 9 months, I'm ready!" It was nice to feel that confidence even though there were a lot of unknowns at the time. Unfortunately I think Josh was nervous enough for the both of us... he tried not to let me see it but he was extremely nervous and worried for me. I guess the first thing he asked his brother as he raced up the beach is if he had seen me get out of the water yet. He said once he knew I was out of the water then he relaxed a little bit.

The best part of the race for me was the three times I got to pass by the girls on the race course. To just see their faces light up as mommy biked/ran by and to hear Makenna's little voice yelling "Go Mommy!" was so incredibly motivating.

As for after the race, I'm really not that sore other than the nice sunburn I have on my upper back and shoulders (which I'm really ticked about because I'm always so careful in the sun). But I am tired due to getting up so early this morning and not sleeping well the night before. I'm sure I'll sleep hard tonight!

So final report, I'm so glad I did it. It had always been a goal of mine to run a road race and now I've done it. I never competed in athletics so this was quite a step out there for me and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. I think I'm hooked now too!

In all seriousness, I owe a huge thank you to three people. First, my parents. They are such troopers and helped with the girls most of the weekend while we were doing all of the triathlon stuff. This included getting up early this morning and hauling the girls out to the park to watch the race which I'm sure was challenging. Josh and I really appreciate it so thank you!

And to my husband, thank you for being my number one supporter and always encouraging me! You were always my biggest cheerleader and always had words of praise for me even if I was down and out about training or whatever it may be. It was so tough getting our schedules to work out and to squeeze two training schedules into our already busy lives, but we somehow managed and I couldn't have done it without all of your help. I realize that you had to sacrifice a lot of your own training time so that I could train but you never mentioned a word about it because you were always so supportive of what I was doing. You made it possible and you made me believe that I could actually do it, so thank you! I love you and can't wait to do the next race with you :)

Note: Triathlon pictures will be coming in another post. The only pictures we have are from my parents camera so I'll post them when I get a chance to download the pics from their camera.