So.. I wander up on the bank, say goodbye to Vic and Mike, wish luck to Chris (who is starting 67 or so people behind me) and find my way in line. They have everyone sorted based on their Mt Bike abilities and then by their estimated swim time. I guessed on both and they came up with number 100. So I make my way up, looking at everyone's numbers on their caps, and oops, number 93 just went in the water. Nice timing. I squeeze in between all these blue caps (mine was pink since I AM a girl) and they all gave me funny looks, double checking my cap number. Then in about 30 seconds I was off. I swam. And swam and swam. I think I swam wide around the course, but I never touched anyone, so it was fine. Man that was tiring though. I breathe every left stroke and by the end, I really think that was the only arm making any effort. Stumbled out of the water and was seriously dizzy.

The transition was 600 meters up (yes UP) the road/trail so we all left shoes down by the water. I chose to remove my entire wetsuit just out of the water and carry it while I ran. So there I was, completely delirious from the swim trying to get a wetsuit off for the first time. :) It was all dirt and I was getting muddy quickly. After a little while of a comical struggle, Ocky shouted "YOU NEED TO SIT DOWN." Oh yeah, right. Got it off, slipped on my shoes and tried to start running up the hill. Problem was, the swimming really threw me off. I kept veering right when I ran. Brain started functioning a little more toward the top of the hill but then Julia, Shannon, Iforgethername were up there shouting and yelling so I HAD to keep running. As soon as I passed them, I uncontrollably dry heaved. DUDE. Jogged a little further and turned onto the trail and did it AGAIN! So I walked a little bit to recover and then jogged into transition.

It took a little more time to wipe my feet off and get my socks on. My feet were not ready to MTB without socks with all that dirt and stuff on them. Worth every second spent here. I wasn't hurrying so much because I still needed to recover a bit before heading up the hill on the mountain bike. I beat Chris to transition, and that was my only goal.

Challenging course. The hike-a-bike was within the first couple miles and as I started grunting my way up it I realized about half way up that I was using too much effort and I still had to run after this. So I hopped off and hiked it along with everyone else. Course was technical and mostly challenging because the trail was so "new" and not as buffed as other courses. Lots of rocks, roots and generalized bumps and turns. Hadn't preridden it so every turn was a surprise. Didn't know when the hills were coming or the descents, but I realized that I could read a mountain bike course pretty well, even if I had not been there. I knew that most climbs are immediately followed by some downhill recovery, I knew that almost always near the bottom of a descent, they like to make a sharp turn and shoot you uphill, I could kind of read where the course was going and what was coming. That made me feel good. By the end, I noticeably had less gas in my legs so I was just hoping to survive the run.

Took some time to take off my socks and get the dirt and pebbles out of them before slipping them back on with my running shoes. Probably could have gone a little faster, but I didn't want to get out on the run course anytime soon.

I still hadn't seen Chris pass me. :)

DUDE. I thought the course was fun, not brutal, but there were some climbs in there. I just walked them. In fact, I walked ALL, EVERY SINGLE ONE, of the hills. I had nothin. Did my best to jog a bit on the flats and downhills, but really just wished for it to be over. Can you imagine what I would feel like if I hadn't run at all in the last month? Made it through, crossed the finish line. Yay.

Stood around talking to people and drinking Joint Juice (what IS that stuff?) Fun to see BTers.


My "training" dropped off significantly this month so I'm pretty glad I made it through this race fairly strong. While Chris never passed me, according to the results, he was 44 seconds faster. He beat me. And it is funny to me that the top 3 girls in my AG were 15 minutes faster than me on the run. hahahaha. dude. Oh well. 5th in my AG out of 11, 18th female out of 54. I'm going to say that's not too shabby for my first one.

And miss Julia Purr called me the next day to tell me she was looking at my results and was impressed with my swim. She made me feel good. :)