Before I get ahead of myself, how did my last triathlon go? It went well! There was cold, rain, and a course that was familiar, but not.
Friday night it absolutely poured rain. Oh boy... Saturday morning brought gray clouds and a few sprinkles but then it burned off to reveal a pleasant day (except for the fact the Huskies got absolutely trounced, but we won't relive that). That was until it started to absolutely pour once again. My first thought Sunday morning as I awoke was, do I hear rain? And I did, but once again it was sprinkles. I was hopeful the weather would be similar to Saturday and it would burn off. But not too much, just enough that the rain would go away!
This race is at the same site as the Seattle Danskin I did a few weeks ago. However, on a much smaller scale. Parking ended up being a bit of a cluster but I found parking and walked over to the transition area. I set up my area and made my way down to the swim start (and was able to use the real bathroom! I had forgotten there was one). I was in wave #8 of 10. As soon as I found out my wave was again towards the back, I immediately tried to quash the worries of being last. After all it wasn't that long ago I started in the second to last wave and finished in no danger of being last.
Brr, I slowly waded into the practice area for the swim. It was cold!! While there were a lot of wetsuits, there was a decent number of girls without wetsuits. And just like that it was time! We got our magic word of "groovy" and were off! With the clouds, sighting was much easier this time. It took a few strokes before I found my "groovy" rhythm. I kept chasing different pairs of feet and tried to pass them one by one.
Out of the swim and on to the bike! Note to self: don't go to kickboxing the day before a triathlon and do lots of lunges and squats. My legs were not at their happiest. I kept going hoping that once I settled in it would get a little easier and it did. My personal nemesis on this course, the hill up to the freeway, loomed in front of me. I dropped down into a lower gear and a lower gear and a lower gear until I was in the lowest gear possible and I still wasn't all the way up the hill. I gritted my teeth and hung on to the top! Woohoo!! That is a first! There was a huge smile on my face!
Once I hit the bike turn-around, I knew I was shortly going to see where I stood in the race. I started counting people as we passed. It wasn't until the middle of the bridge deck when I finally saw the police escort for the last biker. I felt much better at that point that I wasn't going to finish last!
Run time! I had my same goal of running the entire course and walking through the water stops. I went through the first water stop and was soon praying for another water stop. It came finally, after the 1 mile sign. I kept plodding along, one foot after the other. And then came the turn back into the park. The finish line was a lot further up (than where it is for the Danskin) and we circled around before finally the finish line was in sight! Yay!!
I had barely finished when the skies opened up and the rain started coming down. I was so thankful I had made it before the rain started.
And there you have it.
Oh yes, my time. Well I did improve slightly, again mainly due to a much smaller transition area. But I'll take it! Minute by minute, second by second I keep chipping away at my time. Official time was 1:58:06.
Thanks for reading along through my summer of triathlons!
1 comment:
Triathlon # FOUR - WOW - well done Emily! Congratulations! mm
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