I'm sad I can't give this post the time or fanfare it deserves. I have two midterms this week (aack!) on top of my regular load of homework, but I just had to post the details of my first triathalon relay. Amanda did an excellent job of recruiting me early on for the triathalon. We began training to do the whole thing, but when Fall semester hit me I just knew I wouldn't have the extra time to adequately train for all the components of the tri. We elected to do a relay instead. We were lucky enough to recruit a friend, Emily, to do the biking, while Amanda chose running and I chose swimming. Squirt served as our mascot.
The week of the tri I started getting nervous. In the pool I'd been training for endurance, not speed, and I was confident that I would be the absolute dead-last person out of the water. Additionally, I felt very comfortable with pool swimming due to the fact that I could see the bottom and stay in a straight line and the temperatures are moderately warm. The lake promised to be another story and it was.
Lake temps ended up being about 68-69 degrees. Not too bad, but we all thought it best I wear one of Mom and Dad's wet suits.
There are a few things I'll be doing differently next year. This year I'll be training for speed as well as endurance, I'll take longer to warm up and get into a rhythm before starting the race, I'll start on the outside so I won't worry so much about getting kicked in the face (I did get a few gentle kicks here and there, but thankfully not in the face), and I'll invest in some good de-fogging stuff for my goggles. I didn't end up last. In fact, I even passed some of the men who'd started about 3-5 minutes before we did and stayed ahead of about 10 other women. I did it faster than I had anticipated, but in our category (Women's Sprint Relay) I placed 3rd out of three swimmers, something I also want to change next year.
Another thing I'll do differently: bring shoes so I can run up the ramp without bruising my feet.
At the top of the ramp I passed our time chip on to Emily who
seriously dominated in her segment. She got first in our category for biking despite the fact that she was cut off by a car and was led off course by some of the volunteers for a little while.
Bringing it all in at the end was Mandi (sorry the picture's a bit blurry), who also dominated. She got first place for running in our category and even shaved off roughly 4 minutes in her 5k time.
Very impressive!
Overall we placed second, but with a few minutes shaved off my swim time, I'm confident we'll place first next year. It was so neat being with the other competitors who really motivated me to continue in competitive fitness. Several peopel in their 60s especially won my admiration. Mom and Dad Hull, Derrick, Squirt and Jeffrey (Emily's husband) were troopers. After the swimming, we had steady rainfall until we left. By the time the tri was over, everyone was as wet as I had been when I came out of the lake. Their support meant so much to all of us.
5 comments:
how fun to have done that as a team! I should have joined you guys!!
What a blast. And props to you for swimming in that eerie lake with all those people around. That would have freaked me out.
The second most fun Mom and I ever had where we ended up soaking wet! Looking forward to next year.
this rocks and makes me feel motivated to do something.... you seriously put some of us other gals to shame.
How fun- I didn't even know Page did anything like that.... awesome job!
So cool! I didn't realize that you can do only one out of the three. I always thought with triathalons you had to do all 3 yourself. So fun. You'll have to do it again next year and see how you place.
Yay! You're so inspiring to me! Keep up the good work :)
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