Ooohhh so where do I start . . I will start with saturday. I started my saturday out with a 100 mile ride, ok to be technical it was 97 miles. Those miles were spent in the mountains with jeff and rose, and thank goodness rose came through with some entries to miracle hill b/c I don’t know what I would have done for my ride. The ride wasn’t too bad considering it was in the mountains, but I can say I was glad for it to be over. The timing of the ride was perfect b/c it started at 7am which worked with my schedule b/c I had to leave from there and get ready for the tri on Sunday. Jeff and I headed to my house to get our stuff together, and I called ashley to see if she was riding with us or driving by herself. I found out that it was a great thing I called b/c she wasn’t feeling the urge to race and I was her deciding factor. I run around like a chicken with my head cut off and we ended up only being 30 mins. behind schedule. As the 3 of us near columbia I call tracy to see where she was since we were all rooming together only to find out that she had almost bailed as well. We get our packets and all end up getting to the room around the same time. Tracy is trying to find a place with a beer, I am trying to find a place to eat (go figure), and ashley just wants to pass out. Oh, I forgot to mention Ashley debuted as a race director for the first time on saturday and was beat from being up since 4am and she had raced gulf coast the weekend before. At this point none of us want to go anywhere and the only reason we want to eat is so we can go to bed. Did I mention it was only 6 pm? So what was in walking distance . . . fazoli’s. I couldn’t even muster the energy to eat there so we got the meal to go. I really think I couldn’t have picked a funnier group that night to be around. All we could do was laugh at each other. Poor jeff just sat back and looked at us like we were crazy. After dinner I decide cleaning my bike is a must especially after the long ride, and the hammer gel that had leaked all the way down my bike. The gel had dried so I decided to use a plastic knife to try and get it off, I think I ended up taking the gel off my bike and flicking most of it in my hair. Ashley decides to clean her bike since it was covered in salt. We tell tracy to cover her holes . . . .really it’s not as bad as it sounds. We stayed up until 8:30 like the old people we must have become over night. Jeff was the only person who slept b/c someone kept running down the hall upstairs and screaming.
We get to the race site where I am greeted by kat who tells me I look like I need to go back to bed . . . boy was she right. I got all the prerace stuff done and in the wetsuit starting to feel better. The water is really choppy, but I normally don’t mind it. Today would not be one of those days. I see multiple people just sitting out in the water not even moving wondering what’s going on. The waves are what was going on. White caps in a lake, who would have thought. Anyway, once I start it’s kind of crazy and every time I try to sight I get smacked with these small waves that don’t give you time to collect yourself. I stopped a couple of times and almost panic it so bad. I finally was able to start swimming again and start to get a good rhythm. Once I do that I feel great, and really wish I could have seen what my time would have been without stops:) Unfortunately my time is 40 secs. slower coming out of the water, a little over 15 mins. Oh well, I didn’t quit and that’s what matters.
The first couple of miles of the bike was horrible. About mile 3 or 4 I start to feel pretty good and am enjoying the rolling hills. I pass quite a few people and in the last couple of miles I catch up to Karma. We pass each other back and forth a couple of times. My transition time on the 2nd go round sucked. I ran all the way to the end of my row, only to realize it wasn’t my row so I have to run all the way back down and around to the next one.
As I hit the run I see Staci in from of me and it was about that time when I start to realize the swim really cost me some time b/c I hadn’t seen any of my competitors and normally they are catching me at the end of the bike. Again, oh well, all I can do at this time is see if I can stay with her or catch her on the run. The run soon became survival. I just wasn’t feeling like I had the capacity to go the speed I knew I needed to go. I saw kat on the turnaround smoking fast and then I saw staci extend her lead on me little by little. Ok, so if I can hold this pace atleast I will place 3rd and I am ok with that. No 3rd place.
I received my first penalty ever. I can say I usually pride myself in not getting penalties b/c I am one of those people that believes in rules. Before you ask, no I wasn’t sucking someones wheel (forrest thats for you). I got a penalty for unauthorized assistance. At first I didn’t know what that was for, but after some thinking I figured it out. See, I had an enervitene wrapper and a wonderful spectator offered to throw it away for me. This is unauthorized assistance. I take my penalty, and have learned from it.
I finished the race up with a wonderful 6 mile jog with jeff, ashley, kat, and troy. The run wouldn’t have been as much fun without troy singing apple bottom jeans, boots with the fur. Or his amusing story about snot rocketing on the trainer b/c he forgot he was inside . . .did I mention the dog ate it before he could clean it up. Anyway, I had an awesome weekend considering, and it’s great to learn from your mistakes. Thanks for all the fun guys! Kudos to everyone bringing home hardware, and jeff finally beating me:) For results just click on http://www.setupevents.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=event_results&id=930
