What a hilly course...

Well, after my first triathlon, I can’t say I am hooked but I can say I am intrigued. I don’t have results yet, I don’t know what is going on, but the website says they will be available later this evening. I don’t need to see the official results to know that Lee smoked me on the bike ride. Those road bikes just crushed me going down hill. Well, they crushed me going uphill too but I expected that.

One thing I didn’t expect was that it would take about an hour for me to get into the pool. Since they line you up by seed times, we were in the back because we had put down a slow seed time. Next time, I will probably not put down quite as slow of a time. The elites were moving well, but after the first 10 or so swimmers it started slowing way down. Several of the elites were done with the triathlon before we got out of the pool. I also didn’t realize that I would have to tattoo my bib number on both arms and both thighs. We also had it on our bike and our helmet as well as the regular racing bib. When I went to the football game this afternoon, everyone wondered why I had 1318 written all over me!

My friend Judy suggested we take 5 gallon buckets to use in the transition area. That was a great idea because you can sit on them while you are drying your feet and putting on shoes.

The swim went about like I expected. I really will have to work on this if I am going to do more triathlons. Lee started a length ahead of me and finished about a length and a half ahead of me. I got passed by two people. One of them should have been seeded higher. The other one just had a nice, steady stroke.

Going into the transition area, I hit the body glide again and quickly put on a shirt, socks, shoes, fuel belt and helmet. I grabbed a couple of bites of a Clif bar too. Lee was out of there before I knew it and I only saw her one time on the bike route. Then she hit a downhill and was gone. I really struggled on the early uphills. Once I got in a groove and got my gears right, I did much better. Since the bulk of the crowd had gotten out way before us, we were pretty spread out and I literally went a couple of miles in one stretch by myself. The scenery was great but I was ready to get off the bike. I was happy I had my fuel belt as the gatorade really helped me in the last half of the ride and in the 5K.

Now, the run was really great. It started uphill and ended uphill and I passed several of the bikers that had passed me on the ride. It was obvious to me that most of the crowd was made up of cyclists.

I need to get our camera replaced so we can take pictures at all these events. I hope to find some online and I will link them later. If you are a runner and haven’t done a sprint-tri, I would recommend it. It will force you to work on parts of your body that don’t normally get work in running.

Now, if they would just publish the results so I could see how I really did... Days like this make me want a Garmin more!