Try (Tri)

Last weekend I competed in a triathlon. I love to do these and five months ago when I signed up I hadn't swam much (living in a semi-arid country will do that) but I was running often and biked almost daily. Then I got back to Michigan and my new hobby became eating. I didn't run much and this snowy spring keep the bike in the garage. Thankfully a generous person loaned me a wet suit so I managed to at least start swimming but in the weeks leading up the race I wasn't super pleased with how my training was progressing. I figured my goal was simply to finish and be happy with that. And that remained my goal until the first 7 minutes of the race was underway. I was easily mid-pack in the second heat when the gun when off. However, I had the best swim of my life and as we made the final turn of the swim and headed the final 100m back to the beach I realize that I had passed all of my heat and caught the men in the heat ahead of me!! 

See those guys behind me?  All the men went into the water 10 minutes ahead the women!



That meant I was coming out of the water pretty dang close to the first female.  At that point I decided this was no longer a race I was aiming to just finish. So here it is a week later and I'm final able to stop taking Motrin because finally the joints have stopped aching so much.

(Anyone know why this picture distorts so badly every time I post it?)

But I was the 6th Female finisher (and missed 5th by less than 20 seconds) so the aches and pains don't seem so bad.

(8:16 swim, 2:58 T1, 43:10 bike, 0:38 T2, 24:47 run, 1:19:50 finish time) 

Waiting for my heat...