The sunrise this morning....
The kiddos on the drive this morning.
We got up at 4:30 and headed to Denver for the Danskin Sprint Triathlon. It is an all-girl event. It included a half mile open water (68 degree water) swim in a wet suit (not a fun piece of equipment to wrestle with), a 10 mile bike (one very near wipeout) and a 3.2 mile run. I thought and hoped I would finish in 2 hrs. My final time was 1 hr 43 minutes! (Side note: I started running at approx. 1 hr 06 mins...the winner finished at that moment! She was unbelievably fast.) It was so much fun and so much easier than the one I did in May at the USAFA!! The kids and Andy were seemingly everywhere cheering me on. It was so much fun to look up and hear "Go mommy!".
All the red caps lined up and ready to go.
I am on the far left taking a very short-lived...early lead. I was the 10th red cap to finish and 66th overall for the swim (out of 1062 racers). Not bad.
Here I am running from the lake to where my bike was racked. My transistion was 2 minutes faster this time..even with wrestling a wetsuit. Then, it was off on the bike.
Here are the kids at the fence waiting to cheer me on.
I had a few mechanical problems and alot of sharp turns on the course where I had to slow WAY down for the turns, one near wipeout and much, much more fun cycling than at USAFA tri. Bottom line...I stink at biking, though. I feel on the edge of "out-of-control" and very vulnerable to injury when I'm cycling. I was 531st overall in the bike out of 1062...exactly the middle person in the field. People were whizzing by me like it was a an easy Sunday ride for them. Okay, I passed a few people like that, too. :)
Next came the run at an 11 min mile pace...a rank of 496 in the run. Better than before on the pacing, but still not great.
In the end...my final time was 1:43.08...I was 368th overall...57th in my age group (out of 164).
About 2 minutes after the race was finished Andy looked at me and said, "You look fine...like you aren't even tired." He was right. I guess I should've gutted out the run a bit more. It's such a mental game (probably my weakest part) when you don't know the course and aren't sure how much further you have to go. I'll know for next time. Speaking, of next time...I am hoping to do one in the Boulder area Aug 23. It's another all-girl tri race...called Tri-Babes.
Side story: Saturday at the Expo where I picked up my race packet I met a 4 time Olympic athlete...the only person ever to competed in 3 different sports over the course of those Olympics. Her name is Sheila Taormina (I think she is paid by Danskin to be there as inspiration and encouragement). Her sports were Swimming (Atlanta), Triathlon (Sydney and Athens) and Modern Pentathlon (China). She and 3 others won a gold medal in Atlanta in the 4 X 200 Freestyle Relay...upsetting Germany that night. She passed around her Olympic Gold Medal. I had tears (very unexpectedly) spring to my eyes when I had the chance to see it and hold it. Oh, how I wish I had snapped a picture of me holding it...or wearing it. I know it sounds silly, but it was so cool to me. I took the kids over to meet her and she let them hold her medal as well. So, today at the race she was out on the course cheering on the racers. I took every high-five she offered along the race.
