Well, I did it. I completed my first triathlon. It was awesome!
The training was good, I felt prepared. I love that this gave me motivation to keep up my workouts and to workout more frequently all summer. (I’m hoping to continue the pace now that it is done.) I also liked the variety of having three sports to focus on. If I didn't feel like running one day, I could always bike or swim.
The stress of how to transition between during the race got the best of me and I broke down and bought a tri suit. Which is good from a transition aspect but bad because it looks like I mean business and people might have overly high expectations of me.
The low down:
I got to Okoboji late Friday afternoon and we took a boat ride to a local restaurant, Rebos (sober spelled backwards), for dinner. My pre-race meal? Chips and salsa, 2 margaritas, and a burrito (quite possibly the best burrito I’ve ever had). Admittedly, this was probably not the best pre-race dinner; the peer pressure got to me. I was planning to forgo the chips and salsa and only drink water. Ha! I have no will power when it comes to chips and you pretty much can’t have chips and salsa without a margarita (or two).
My hopes of going to bed at 8 p.m. were not realistic with this gang. But I did make it by 10:20, although it didn’t help. Robin (cousin) and I couldn’t sleep; we were too anxious for the race.
We got out of bed at 5:00 a.m. and had a banana and Cliff bar and got geared up for the race. (This was forced as I was still full from the burrito.) We loaded up our bikes and off we went. “We” consisted of myself, my cousin Nicholas, my cousin Robin, my cousin Christopher, my cousin Eric, and three of Nicholas’ friends – Troy
The weather was perfect. We hit the water at 7 a.m. I got kicked twice within my first two minutes and decided to back off. The swim went well except my calf cramped up and still hasn’t let go. I thought it would take me 40 minutes to complete but the timer guy said 24:18 when I got out of the water. You would’ve thought we were at a picnic during our transitions periods. I think we got chatty and forgot we were in a race. Therefore, we lost a lot of time during the transitions. The bike ride was okay. It was 65% on the highway – which was not blocked off! We got honked at, yelled at, cursed at, and dirty looks. It wasn’t very safe. There were also no bathrooms along the route and I had to pee like crazy!
Once we got back to the transition area I dumped my bike and headed to the restroom. This is where the tri suit was not the most efficient. It is hard to peel that thing off so I lost some time there. For the run we all decided to stick together and we did a lot of walking. I crossed the finish line at 3:10 and it felt great! My goal was 3:30.
The next 12 hours consisted of a big celebration. After hydrating a bit, I popped a bottle of bubbly and kicked the festivities off. The rest of the day consisted of lots of eating, drinking, and boating. Oh, and the tornado that happened while we were at the bar that knocked the power out for the night. Got to bed at 2 a.m. and didn’t sleep well again because it was hot and humid and with now power, there was no AC. Always and adventure!
All in all, it was a great first triathlon and, yes, there will be second. I loved it!
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