I had been fretting about this swim because I was afraid I would freeze. I have a surfing/jet ski type wet suit, but I decided I wasn't going to use it -- just brave the cold. It wasn't that bad, at all. The water felt wonderful and was as calm as I've ever seen a lake.

The gun went off and so did we. I experimented with drafting, but I really couldn't tell if it helped any. I'm just not that strong of a swimmer. But I was doing a great job with breathing, stroking, and was even near the front of my wave for about 200m or so. And then I just stopped, and looked around and was overcome with the beauty of the morning.

I knew I was supposed to be racing, so I tried to swim a little more, and then decided I really wanted to watch everyone and everything. So I did some breast stroke, side stroke, even a kind of back stroke (so I could see the swimmers behind me), and watched them swim, feeling the coolness of the water, seeing the fog and the sun trying to break through . . it was just one of the most beautiful experiences I've had in a long time. It was so quiet on the water, with just the sounds of the swimmers swimming.

I even tried to tell one of the swimmers who was breast stroking near me what a beautiful morning it was, but she ignored me. She probably thought I was a nut. But I wanted to share it with someone. On the back side of the swim, one of the volunteers on a kick board was talkative -- telling us all we were doing a great job and to keep it up, etc. So I yelled over to her, "Thank you so much! Isn't this just the most beautiful day???" She agreed and kind of laughed, and I felt better, having shared the moment with someone.

On the side going back to shore, a couple people from the wave behind us caught up with me. I decided to try to just swim it in, since I'd basically been lollygagging since I stopped crawling exclusively at 200m.

At this point, I was a little upset with myself. "Seriously?? You are out here like this is some Sunday morning swim and you have all day to get it completed." I couldn't believe I'd wasted so much time.

I ended up forgiving myself for it on the bike because the beauty was incredible. I decided I will have many races where I just keep my face in the water and swim. I gave myself this one to enjoy the beauty.

Well, I won't lollygag again. I've done it now, and it was amazing. But next time, I will swim and not stop until I reach sand.

There was a bit of a run to transition, but that is no excuse for how slow this went. I moved as quickly as I could, but I wanted to put on a long sleeved dry fit shirt because of the air temperature. Maybe I didn't need it, but I was glad I had it. Still, putting it on with wet skin was not an easy task, and I was still fussing with the sleeves a little on the bike.

Move faster. This was one of my slowest T1s ever. In total, I lost almost 5 minutes in transition. I have got to figure out a better strategy.

This was a fun ride -- a lot of hills, some of them a little tough. As we were turning out of the park, a rider was down -- all of the way down. A volunteer was hunched over her asking her if she was okay. I heard the rider respond, but I couldn't make out what she said. Those of us riding by, commented about how horrible that was. She was not near her bike -- 10 feet or more away -- so I don't know if she was thrown some how. Anyway, as I came back into the park after making the loop, an ambulance was there to take her away, so whatever happened, it wasn't good. That was pretty sobering.

Other than that, the ride went pretty smoothly. I passed a few people, but mostly I was passed because the swim heat after me was a group of younger people (Of course. I was in the "old lady" heat -- I'm still having a hard time with that.) As someone passed me, I tried to hang with them in my sight for as long as I could, to try to keep my pace up. I couldn't do it on the hills, however. Some people have real skill when it comes to hill climbing, that I just don't have.

I pushed it as much as I could all the way back to transition, jumped off the bike and ran to my rack. I've not run with the bike before after riding, but I'll talk more about this in the transition 2 description.

I have not been motivated to bike in the last few weeks. That may have hurt my performance some. I also knew this was my last race with this bike (my Quintano Roo is being Fed Ex'd to me right now), and that influenced my attitude. "Oh, well. I'm going to be a little slow here, but I'll be faster next year with the new bike."

So, I need to train harder, faster, and with more hills. There was a picture taken of me while I was climbing one of the hills, and I look serious about it, like I'm really working, but there isn't a lot of pay off for that expenditure of energy, at least not in speed.

I don't really "jump" off the bike, but I climbed off the bike and took off running with it as fast as I could. Woah! I thought my legs were going to buckle underneath me. I basically didn't have any legs. I ignored their complaint about running, got myself back together, and finished running to my rack. Thank goodness a biker next to me had a nice big purple balloon by her spot, so I knew just where to go! lol

By this time, I had warmed up substantially, so I took the time to remove the dry fit top and elected to run in my tri suit and the skirt. Took of the bike shoes, put on the running shoes, with socks. My feet were still wet, from the swim, I guess, so the socks did not go on very smoothly.

Took off running for the "Run Out" sign as quickly as I could, checking my head to be sure I didn't still have my bike helmet on because I honestly couldn't remember taking it off.

Maybe learn to run without socks? I don't know. This transition baffles me more than T1 because I don't see why it takes me so long to change my shoes -- that's basically all I'm doing.

I bolted out of T2 and immediately started climbing a hill. By the time I got to the top, I knew I had overdone it, and I was a little worried I was going to burn myself out, so I told myself to slow down a little. I was really out of breath, so I had to concentrate on slow, relaxed breathing to get myself back under control. Still, any downhill running, I ran just about as fast as I dared, without all out sprinting, then ran deliberately on the up hills.

The Pro, Trish Downing, was just finishing her run as I got to the first uphill, and it was inspiring watching her climb her last hill and make the turn to the downhill toward the Finish. She's amazing.

I passed a lot of people on the run, but that's easy to do when they are walking. lol To be fair to myself, I did pass a lot of people who were running, and by their numbers, I could tell that I was passing people in the swim waves before me. That was encouraging and just made me run stronger.

At about the 1 mile marker, I was feeling that this run was too short, that I wasn't ready for this race to be over in 20 minutes. I decided then that next summer, I will try an Oly. More about that later.

At about the 2 mile marker, I decided that the run was mismarked (it wasn't) because I was sure I'd already run three miles. I was exhausted. But I pushed through that, tried to pick up the pace. I still had one more nasty hill to climb -- the one I'd seen Trish rolling up on her way to the finish.

I thought about her a lot on that hill climb. It was tough, and I kept reminding myself about how strong and confident she looked and that I wanted to resemble that strength the best I could. So I kept pushing it. Once I got to the top, the volunteer said "This is it. Down hill to the Finish. Kick it in!!!!"

And I did. I was a little worried about sprinting down hill, but I decided I didn't care. I was not going to leave anything behind. I passed someone on the way down, and I felt a little bad about that, but she wasn't in my age group, so oh well for her, I guess.

I ran through the mat and couldn't stop. I had a lot of momentum going. I almost ran over the little girls handing out the finisher's medals. They were all just standing there with their arms extended, a medal on the end, saying "Congratulations!" and "Good job!" and I ran right through them. lol I finally got myself stopped, and one came over to hand me a medal. Then someone put a cup of water in my hand (I didn't remember that, but it was in the picture at the end.) A guy came to take off my timing chip, and I could barely stand still. My legs were really jumpy.

Then the photographer took my picture and handed me his card, and it was all overwhelming. (In the picture he took, I look like an insane drunk person.) I knew I was going to lose it, so I got myself to what I thought was a quiet spot to stretch and cried.

I don't even know why I was crying. I didn't know my run time exactly, but I knew approximately when I'd finished the bike, and from the finish clock, I thought I had probably done the 5k in about 30 minutes -- or less.

I was hoping to finish this race in 1:30, and I knew I was pretty close to that.

It was the last Tri of the season, and that made me sad.

Nothing hurt -- not either Achilles and not my hip. I was amazed.

I couldn't believe how far I've come in a few months. A year ago, I was so sick -- my gall bladder was bringing me down. I was 40 pounds heavier. My students would comment about how out of breath I was just climbing three flights of stairs to our classroom.

And here I was. I had done this thing that would have seemed ridiculous a few months ago, and I'd done it three times -- each time a little better than the time before.

At this point, nothing. I have figured out the pacing that works for me. As I gain more strength and have more time on my feet, I will get faster. I've seen that this summer.

After my stretch and good cry. I went into the bathroom to clean myself up. Then grabbed a banana and got in line for a massage. The wait was a while, but worth it. He really worked over my calves and my hips, which weren't hurting! The other positive thing about the stretch/massage is that he could tell that I had stretched already. That made me think that I have developed a pretty good post-run stretching routine.

Grabbed a veggie burger, chocolate milk, and some baked chips. Because the triathlon was sponsored by a medical center, I had the opportunity to have my blood tested. My blood sugar was 96 (!!!!!). The nurse said, "You need to eat something NOW." Well, I had eaten something, but I guess it hadn't gotten into my blood stream yet.

Packed up transition and walked my bike back to my car. Actually changed my clothes in the car. I had planned to shower and change at the lake, but I hadn't figured into that plan that my car was going to be almost a mile away from the lake house. So, no shower. Just dry clothes.

After about two hours of driving, I stopped to get a diet cherry limeade, cheddar bites, and apple slices. Just to top off my glycogen.


So many things.

Post Season Training Goals:

Continue swimming lessons and swim at least four times a week. I need to increase my endurance and my speed. My arms are really sore today, and they shouldn't be. That was not a long swim.

Get used to my "new" bike. I can't wait to get on it and develop some speed. I'm a little nervous about the aero position, so I need to work on becoming comfortable with that before the first triathlon next spring.

Run. Run. Run. I'm going to continue trying to run every day -- even if it's just two miles. I need to build those muscles and increase endurance. More speed would be nice, but I'm really more interested in endurance. Okay, getting to 8 or 9 minute miles would be amazing. But I'm not going to do speed work to get there -- not this winter, anyway.

Oly. I'm still psyched about this, although now that the racing high has decreased, I'm starting to question myself. But I am going to do at least one Oly distance next summer. I am also seriously considering Kansas 70.3 in 2013.

13.1 -- I'm "running" a half marathon in two weeks. I'm doing it because it is a first time local event, and I want to support it. I have every intention of doing a walk/run because I don't have the training to run 13.1 straight yet. By the end of the winter/early spring, I want to run a completely 13.1 -- in two hours would be awesome!


I really can't think of what they could have done to make this event better. We did have a 10 minute fog delay before the first swim wave went off, but that was understandable. We could barely see the first buoy from the beach. People kept asking me, "Are there really buoys out there???" Since I had looked at the swim course the previous evening, I assured them that they were out there.

Before the race, I told everyone that I would never do a race in Kansas in September again, but I've changed my mind. The conditions were perfect -- this race was much easier than doing the same thing in July -- even with the cold water and cold air temperature.

I will be back next year.