Actually, yes I can believe it, there was no question I wouldn't compete the triathlon, but looking back it's still pretty amazing. The triathlon was so much fun! I know, a crazy thing to say about an even that has you swimming, cycling AND running back to back but it really wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.
The swimming part was the one I was most anxious about, mostly because I had little to no experience swimming in open water and it was going to be a constant 1/2 mile instead of the normal back and forth in a pool. Once I got used to the open water, and past the wakes of the jet skis that were rescuing people who couldn't make the swim, I started to get a good stride and a good strategy going. By the end of the swim I'd hit that sweet spot where I was just going without having to think too much about what I was doing outside of sighting in order to stay on course. Unfortunately, that was about the time the 1/2 mile was over and it was time to jump on my bike.
Cycling was the easiest part, and I knew going in that it would be. It took about a half mile to a mile for my legs muscles to realize that we were now cycling and get into that mode but once again, I hit that sweet spot and I was just going. I was familiar with the course having ridden it with my friends Beth and Leslie while training for Bike MS. About half way through there were some hills that on the first ride my friend Beth forgot to warn us about saying that they were such 'small' hills she didn't think they mattered. When I got to them I could help laughing at the memory as I flew through the 'small','insignificant' hills saying to myself, "Well, those didn't matter." One thing I will say about the cycling part... I didn't fly through the 16 miles the way I'd normally go which is the only impact the swim had on my ability to do the second event.
Running... my weakest and least favorite part of the triathlon. I don't hate running the way I used to, but it's still not my favorite activity in the world. A mistake I made during training was that I did not prepare myself for the transition from cycling to running as perhaps I should have. Once again, its a sudden shock to the muscles that were in a groove doing one thing and waking up others that weren't having to work as hard. Going into the 5K I was getting pretty tired but determined to finish... I only had three miles left to go. I decided to walk the first half, 1 1/2 miles, to recover from the last activity and to give my leg muscles time to adjust to walking/running. It turned out to be a smart move because I was able to run the majority of the 1 1/2 miles to the finish.
I completed the triathlon in 2 hours 50 minutes, being my first triathlon it's my personal best. Now I have a baseline with which I can compare my next triathlon time to. Some people were in it to be the best and the fastest but I was competing with myself, challenging myself to be the best I could be. Now the next thing to do is beat my time in the next tri.
Now it's time to look forward to Oktoberfest on September 25th. After Saturday I know what parts I need to focus on the most... transitioning from the bike to running... and I know what to expect during the swim and my transitions will probably be a little faster as I now know what I need to do. I have a feeling that I will do even better the second time around.
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