light drizzle and cold. it was crazy starting in the head of the pack w/ the elites and the younger men (29 and under). i was only one of a handful of women who were either elites or in my class. no wonder i was doing sub 7 min miles the first mile!

MAYBE slow down a bit at the start.

since i was going faster than i expected, i was worried that bill wouldn't be in transition when i got there. he wasn't, either. lucky for us, the run course looped through the parking lot to the transition area, and i ran right past our car. i knocked on the window and kept going. the course looped to the end of the lot and then into transition, and by the time i got there, bill had managed to run over and get his helmet on. passed off the timing chip (which was on a velcro strap) and off he went. we were not super speedy about it, since we were just there to have fun...no expectations of winning.

not assume it will take me 30 minutes to run 3 miles when i've been running sub-10 for a couple months now :)

he came in with his wool jersey, green rivendell, and leather brooks saddle, right along tricked out tri bikes (nothing against tri bikes, bill just looked like someone out of a 40s tour de france compared to the other guys).

i'll have to ask bill :)

we really took our time here, since this was bill's first race in years, we took time to congratulate each other on how we were doing so far, have a kiss, etc.

since it was really cold and rainy, i stayed in the car with the girls and mackenzie (our babysitter) during the bike. i had done a little stretching, but with the cold weather, my legs got pretty stiff pretty fast. it took the first mile of running before i felt like i was were i wanted to be pace wise.

stretch after the first run, wear warm up pants, stretch and run a bit before the second run.

a bit of stretching, some hot dogs (provided by the race director), waited around for the awards ceremony (because we had to!)


wow. well, we were sick all week. all of us. the last two nights i hardly slept more than 2 hours in a stretch without waking up with fiona, who was teething.


race results are not online yet. can't wait to see where we were overall. we've had mixed luck with this race organizer, but this event was really fun. they did a great job, especially considering the weather was less than perfect. they also gave us an extra shirt for free to give to our babysitter, who was a trooper chasing the kids in the rain, camping out in the car and singing songs with the kids, etc.

as you can see from the photos, it was wet wet wet! it was also cold, which is why some of the photos were blurred...going from the warmth of a jacket pocket into the cold humid air was enough to make it fog.

we are pleased as punch to have come in first. not a very big field, i know, but it was still fun to bring home a 1st place trophy the very first time we've EVER raced together. bill has raced and i've raced, but in the nearly 8 years we've been together, this is the first time we've ever raced together.

pictures: http://www.fidean.net/pix/oakdaledu/oakdaledu.html

results: http://www.pickleevents.com/results/2005/oakdaledu.txt