Vancouver Lake Mock Tri

First triathlon ~ DONE! Thanks for checking on me, Melissa!!

Boy, I went out fast on the swim. Too fast with no warm up. I watched Jack at swim lessons the other day with his arms flailing to his sides as his head sunk under water and as I was swimming today, that was how I felt. On the bright side - I don't remember even worrying about taking a breath - I actually don't remember much of it at all - just that we were back at shore before I knew it. We didn't have timing chips or anything so everything but the bike is a bit of a guesstimate.

It was an olympic length race - or close to it (shorter swim, longer bike - I was out there for a bit under 3hours and 15 mins.

800m (.5 mile) swim ~ 18 min
T1 ~ 3 min
27.20 mile bike ~ 1:42:47
T2 ~ 3 min
6.2 mile run ~ 1:06:00 (included a potty break)

Overall it was a good experience. I was happy with the swim but will try to start out slower tomorrow - also warm up quite a bit more. I forgot to put my gloves on at T1 and my left arm fell asleep early on and never really woke back up. Because I was so overtaxed from swimming too hard, I was unable to stomach any food or drink for almost 45 minutes into the bike ride and I messed up my nutrition all the way through - nothing sounded very good. I should have pushed myself harder on the run but it was still a decent time and honestly it seemed more fun to go slower. Both cheeks (the ones on my face) kind of went into a weird paralysis at about mile 3. No idea what it was from. Went away about 10 minutes after I was done with the race.

I have to just embrace that I'm a back of the pack girl. At least for now, because not much is going to change in the next 4 weeks. I would like to blame it on the fact that I'm on a mountain bike and today really wondered how much faster I would be on a road bike. I'm the only one on the team with these big fat tires and I catch heck for them often. My legs are strong so I think that when/if I do get a road bike I might be really surprised with what I can do. I only passed 3 people and I was passed by dozens upon dozens. Embrace the fun of being in the back, Julie. EMBRACE IT! ENJOY IT! HAVE FUN!

So I did have lots of fun and it's nice to have it under my belt. Next weekend's big work out is a 75 mile hilly ride - going up Larch Mountain again - to the top this time if there's no snow. Weekend after that is the Blue Lake Olympic Tri and then two weeks later it's Pac Crest Baby!!

So with Steve gone I had to run home to let poor Ki out of her crate, take a shower, run over to pick up the kids and hit the bank and then grab a few groceries to get us through the weekend. I didn't eat after the race (DUMB!) and I almost passed out (after almost strangling the kids several times to the crinkled up faces of passers by giving me a silent tsk tsk) at the grocery store. I picked the "family friendly" aisle thinking since I had kids they would try to speed up the process and it was the slowest line in the store. Almost made it out of the store before ripping open a bag of Ruffles and shoving two handfuls into my face. Phew....my mouth is now ruined from so much salt, but I feel tons better!

Have cousin Carley coming over soon to help out with the kids tonight while I get month end stuff done for the business and then I'll have a new race report for you tomorrow after the Hagg 1.2 mile swim and 10 mile run.