St. Anthony's Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

wow. I thought I was a strong swimmer. But no amount of hard work in the pool could have prepareed me for this. By 9:00, whhen we took off, it was choppy and windy, and the currents were crazy! Especially coming in at the end, I expected to ride the waves in, but the current kept pulling me back out.

After some initial panic, I calmed down and did this: every 10 strokes I flipped over and did back stroke for a few seconds. I kept my strokes really long and strong and pulled like mad, and then flipped over to rest. Counting strokes seemed to help me settle down.

not much I could have done, except ask my training partners to kick me and throw junk at me in the pool. Really, I think I did OK given my lack of OWS preparation.

I did OK here. I was so queasy coming out of the water, I sorta felt like stopping and taking a short nap. really. I felt kinda dazed. Smarti came out of the water right by me and yelled Possum! That was SO COOL! We cracked some jokes and I felt good again.

Need to practice sliding my feet in better- My wet feet jammed the toungeue of my shoe backwards and I had a hellova time yanking it back out

I was stunned at how fast I was on corners, I had no idea I was such an agressive rider, but just about every time I passed anyone it was at a corner. I love that! The flat course was fun to ride in that when the wind was at my back I was cruising, at one point I looked down and saw 24 mph, which is insanely fast for me. But one turn later, it said 11.9, soooo... I learned to stay humble! The "cobblestones" I had been warned about were easy, the hardest thing was not really knowing how to attack/pass, and feeling paranoid about drafting, and being way too aware of everyone else and not enough of myself. there were times my cadence was 112-115, and I should have shifted up to keep it between 85-95, but I am not used to so much shifting in flats. I am haoppy that I didn;t fall/crash, didn;t get penalized for drafting, and came off the bike happy.

I just need to practice more. Oh, and the fact that the mechanic told me the day before the race that my rear hub (is there such thing as a front hub?) and bottom bracket were both shot makes me think there is more to bike maintenance than just shoving her in the garage after each ride... He said it wouldn't get more damaged, and it wasn't a safety issue, just that I'd have lots of clanking nosies and some vibrations. Hmmm. All I asked him was if there was enough air in the tires and what was up with the noises, and I gotta a little lecture about "those salty roads up north..." So next time I take better care of my steed.

At this point I was just so happy! I didn;t care about anything excpet getting back out there! It was all TNT peeps and it was just so much damn fun, I didn;t pay very good attention to my Transition pace

not much. It's supposed to be fun!

I felt pretty good by mile 2. the whole first mile was sucky, my calves were like rocks, so I stopped a bunch to stretch. But by mile 2 I was happy again, did the 7 min run, 1 min walk thing, and felt very happy the whole time. ITB pinched a little about mi 4.5, but not too badly. Legs felt spent way before my lungs did, I feel like I really need to work on strength, this race was illustrative of that. I defenitely never pushed on the run, I just wanted to finish happy. Saw Renee, Lucy, Foolproof, Sue on the course which was SO FUN! The TNT coaches and other staff were all over the course which was cool too.

must work harder! or, better, anyway, I should be able to run better than I have been.

cross finish line, look up and thank God and all the Angels, especially Tim and Scuba Punk's Jen. Get cold towel, walk around sipping gatorade and trying not to cry.


Lack of experience at this distance.


they ran out of cups at the last aid station on the run so they were just pouring water out of these big gallons. that was funny, some people opened their mouths and tilted back their heads, others offered their hands.

The Venn diagram of TNT peeps and BT peeps made this a very special day.