Cranberry Country Triathlon - TriathlonOlympic

WOW this was a totally kick ass swim for me. WAY faster than I have ever gone. My PB for 100 yards is 1:31...course my have been a little short but even if it was it was STILL a kick ass swim for me.

The entrance to the swim was tiny. I knew from talking with Kathy right at the first buoy it was real shallow to the right so I tried to position myself to the left. As usual tried to start towards the front just behind the eager beavers...might as well get a draft right!! First 100 yards or so to the first buoy were a little congested but then

TALK ABOUT MIDDLE OF THE PACK....geez..there was a cluster of white caps, then me by myself then another cluster of white caps. For a while I thought I was last but at the turn I could see a bunch of people behind me. At the first turn I started passing people from other waves. Truned through the cove and was able to cut the corner nicely. This was where the water was SO GROSS, and probably why I have a sore ear and thoat today. You could see all this particulate crap floating in the water..I was like EEEWWW PPHHT PHHTTT. THe last leg went by quickly and I picked it up a notch. Swam almost all the way to shore and hit my watch...I was so psyched I went uinder 25 minutes which was my stretch goal.

Not a thing...by best swim ever.....

Everything is relative. All the MA people thought the transition was far from the swim exit...well come on down to FL where you have to run 1/2 mile to get to transition.. this was a breeze. Had trouble getting the wetsuit off my stupid calves as always (body glide is WORTHLESS) Went fine...I walke part of the way from swim exit to the coral.

Run more of the transition. Not much.

I was on my old Roo...now re-named pricess Roo..I rode her the day before and it was OK. First 10 miles were fine. Passed DK about mile 5. I think I did very well for someone with no hills to train on. Also in addition to no hills to go up I also have no hills to go DOWN..that was FUN. After that I had trouble getting from big ring to small. SO the girl who cannot train hills in on a hilly course with no small ring HUMPH. Turns out the girl I lent the bike too had changed some stuff on it and didn't tell me til after the race. Oh well...probably lost a little time but it was fine. I'm really glad I rode that bike in the is race because without a doubt it is too small for me. I am very glad I bought a new bike. I was just feeling really cramped front to back and couldn't breathe well and got a side stitch. Probably why when I got one off the bike at my HIM when I was pushing into the wind. Bike course was a little long so I kind of didn't know how far from the finish I was.

Bring Quinn :) Train hills

Most important thing is no blisters. I'm a bad enough runner without blisters. A little extra care prevents this. Sat down, washed and dried feet, socks and shoes on, grabbed a bottle on NUUN, my hat and race belt...saw my parents and they were taking pictures etc. Rob ran past me at the exit and I said Hi but he was too focused to notice. Decided since it was realatively chilly I didn't want the nuun and threw it off almost immediately. Ended up being fine with what was ont he race course

not much. I got goofy feet and I will be crippled if I don't take some blister prevention time so its fine

Well first of all this is my 3rd oly and my best run time in a oly. Second despite that I was DFL for the run for THE ENTIRE RACE...HUMPH. Not much else to say. I did the best I could. I've been plagued with injuries. I ran about 95% of it. EVERYONE passed me. My timing chip was cutting into my achilles and I stopped about 5 times to try to fix it in various ways to no avail. I was having a great last dowhill mile and I knew I was close because the end of the bike paralelled the end of the run. I thought geez I'm almost there I can run in and I will have a PB...then this stupid (*$#&^$# says its only 4 10th left..OK I REALLY didn't need to hear that...I thought it was like 2 10ths..I could have RUN the rest of the way if she didn't burst my bubble...AAAARGGHHHH

Bottom line is I really didn't want to excerbate my tendonitis. I needed to take it easy and not kill myself. IMFL is the goal right now. I came to the conclusion that all NE triathletes were runners in a former life. I only saw one other person take a walk break. Oh well onward and upward. It would be really nice to do a race uninjured tho.

Not be injured, learn to run.

Came up thru the shoot and my mom and dad, aunt, and cousins were all there cheering me on. That was really nice. The BTers were all on the other side. My cousin is a PT/ATC and she stretched me out after the race which was awesome and really helped a lot. Took down transition.

My dad just drove the mini winnie right up in the middle of the grass and we had a big ole BT party!!! Lots of fun meeting new people and catching up with online buddies. Nice BBQ.


INJURY INJURY INJURY, No hills to train on, can't train run properly due to injury. I figured out that in 2 years of doing tris I have been uninjured for all of 12 weeks....and that wasn't even consecutive. I might have done a hair better on Quinn.


This is PB at OLY distance for me and the course was long. Also PB 10K for me (OK so I have only done 3 10Ks and they were in my 3 olys) SO even tho it is uber slow its still improvement for me. I was hoping to go sub 3 hours but I knew it would come down to the run as always and not making my injury worse was more important than anything else. Honestly, I could have stopped after the swim and been a happy girl because that was a tremendous swim for me. I knew the bike wouldn't be my best because I was back on little Roo and because of hills. I'm OK with it.

I read Jorges Timberman race report the day before Cranberry and one of the things that dawned on me while readin it is that we all get to the start thru very different routes and you never know how the person next to you got to the start line. We all have a story and its more complicated than just stepping up to the line. Kathy G is an inspiration losing more than 85# Ellen too losing a ton of Weight, Aaron like me has fought injury, Others have fought battles of their own just to get there. Everyones finish is a triumph regardless of the time on the clock.

This was a great weekend of meeting new people, some of whom I have been "talking" with on BT for 2 years. Kathy and Kevin put on a great party for us Saturday. I got to meet my coach live and in person. We had a great party afterwards. I hope everyone else had a great time too :)