.5 m/12.5m/5K

Well…we did it! Goals for the first tri (in order of importance):
1) Finish
2) Don't finish last
3) Finish in about 1:40 (not counting transitions - sub 20'swim, sub 50' bike, sub 30' run)

We got there WAY early, which was good. Had lots of time to check things out and get set up before all the beautiful people arrived with their beautiful bikes. Got everything set up (thanks to all the tips from you all) and wandered around, thinking about everyone's "stupidest thing I did in a race" posts from Friday (thanks, TG…something else to be neurotic about…). Met OR-Joe and wildarcher (Mark) about 20 minutes before the start of the olympic.

Swim (17:16)
Swim start was pretty uneventful. They only had two waves for the sprint so there were lots of people. We tried to move way over to the outside and then waited a few seconds before taking off. Didn't get kicked too hard by anyone. After rounding the last buoy, my new Seal mask fogged up (never did that before) so I had a really hard time making out the finish. At one point I had to stop, take off the mask, and look just to make sure the big blur I thought was the crowd at the beach was really what I thought it was. I'm sure I swam more than ½ mile! (gotta work on that…) For about the last 200 yards, some hoser was humping my leg - why he/she felt the need to hang out on the edge with me is beyond me. Came out of the water to the cheers of my peeps (mom, sister, bro-in-law, 3 nephews). That was awesome. Army bro-in-law yelled, "If you're smiling, you're not working hard enough!!!" Ran/walked up the LOOONNNGGG, steep hill (got my HR up nice and high) to…

T1 (3:21)
Wetsuit came off easy (thanks, Pam). Threw on the bike shoes (thanks, Yankz), helmet on, shades on, grab the bike.

Bike (50:03)
Clipped in and off again..fam had moved up to the bike start and were cheering again - can't tell you how awesome that was. I gotta tell you, I felt like a real loser with my mountain bike when everyone was getting set up, but once I was on it, it really didn't make a whole lot of difference. I passed some pretty awesome bikes! Did anyone mention that this is a HILLY course? They say "rolling hills", but these were a bit more brutal than that. Average speed was about 15.5, and at one point going up a hill I was doing a depressing 6 mph. That sucked. I took it pretty easy on the bike because I couldn't quite remember how many hills there were (we rode most of the course a couple of months ago). I think the course might have been long…both of our bike computers showed over 13.5 miles.

T2 (1:57)
Bike shoes off, socks/running shoes on, helmet OFF (whew…remembered), hat on…off to run. As I was leaving, volunteers were handing out water and some nasty green stuff. I wanted water, grabbed a cup and took one sip (yep, nasty green stuff) and tossed it in the trash.

Run (30:00)
More cheers (YAY). Had to run up a fairly steep hill (HR waaayyy up again). Realized I forgot to take off my bike gloves (I have knobby grips that hurt my hands, and I'm a whimp, but at least I put them on while I was riding and not in the transition area). Took them off and stuff them in my tri-top pockets (probably looked pretty goofy, but I was already wearing a goofy-looking Star Trek DeSoto top anyway, so what's the difference???) At the top of the hill, my stomach gave me the old, "What the (*&$% did you just give me, you moron???" and decided to cramp up for the first ½ of the run. That was a new one for me. I've usually got a pretty tough stomach. So the legs felt fine (as they did at the beginning of the bike), but I had to take baby steps for a mile or so because of the stomach cramping. I was able to relax and stride out the last ½ and had a nice sprint to the finish.

I was pretty conservative, relatively speaking (see goal #1), but did kick it in a few times here and there (see goals 2 & 3). All in all, it was a BLAST. I kept thinking, "This is SO MUCH FUN!!!" (not my exact words during a marathon, 5K or 10K). Had an awesome time afterward with the fam and got to talk with Joe some more and met his wife. My 8-year-old nephew was asking me how old you had to be to do a race and then counting on his fingers to figure out how long before he could do it! Sister and bro-in-law want to train for one too - maybe 2003, they said (she's 4 months pregnant).

I'LL BE BACK!!! Thanks to everyone for sharing all your tips, stories, and experiences - you are inspiring! I'm ready to go for my next PR (at the OLY in September)!

- Gina