I DID IT!!

I did it, I did it, I did it! I've officially completed a life goal to compete in a triathlon. Tick that one off the list :) Of course it wasn't without drama... as usual for me! If you're not interested in triathlon stuff, you definitely won't be interested in reading further! :)

THE SWIM
Well what can I say - I sucked! It was in the pool for the 100m (don't laugh), and 50 of us were in the first race. (Too many people, had to be done in 2 waves). I was speaking to other gals before the swim and they were saying they hadn't swum in years, "I'm gonna be so bad" etc etc etc. But I just KNEW I would be bad - and I've trained 2x week since Christmas! To my horror, just before I jumped in the pool, I saw my client, dammit she did come to watch! So off we swam. I did the first 50m OK, then I hit the wall at about 75m again... I stopped to catch air because, as usual I had the breathing fit. It was very disheartening to see more than half the girls already out of the water and running off to the bike transition. I got to the end as fast as I could and beat a few people out, only because they had trouble lifting themselves out of the pool. At last my arms were good for something!! I swear I was second-last of 50 people out of the pool. I overtook a few running to the bike area though...

THE BIKE
3 lots of a 2km loop. I seemed to take forever putting my shoes on and organising myself. The more I hurried, the worse it was! Once I was off, the bike was ALLL MINE!! I overtook about 10 people the first loop, probably about 20-25 in total. (Yeeehaaa... made up a few places from that horrendous swim leg!!). I did feel bad though, flying past them on my road bike, the poor girls struggling on their heavy mountain bikes. Well, OK, not that bad ;). The cycle leg felt fantastic!!

THE RUN
2kms. Walk in the park... right? Well Miss Smarty-Pants here didn't do enough transition training from bike to run... My legs were sooo unbelievably heavy - kinda like running through mud in steel cap boots. A few cyclists I passed got their revenge. I just couldn't lift my legs, it was the most horrible feeling! About a km into it, I felt better and made up ground and overtook a few people and kept following the ones ahead... I was in heads down, bums up mode, just powering along, as I mentioned following the ones ahead... (so like, it's totally not my fault ;) )...who missed the turn-off!!!!!!! So we kept running till we realised... ahh I don't think it's this far along. Soooooo we ran an extra 500-600metres which is quite alot more considering it was only a 2km run!!!!!!!! But I got to the end in one piece, sooo mad at myself for not taking more notice of the course, but I finished it all the same.

Final time was 24mins 12secs. I'm really happy with that. I had no idea what time to expect as I've never raced a bike, or swum in a similar situation since grade 3, let alone put three disciplines together. I plucked 25mins out of the air and goaled to get under that, so was stoked with 24min 12secs considering I did an extra few minutes on the run leg!

I saw my client after it and the conversation went a little like this:

Me: So did you see me get out of the pool about second last??

Her: No, there were about 5 or 6 after you!

Me: Really? So I was about 44th or 45th then??

Her: Yes, that's about right!!

WILL I DO IT AGAIN?
Hell yes!! I hated most of it, that pain of really pushing yourself, but I love the satisfaction of completing it!! I'm feeling awesome today, on such a high from the whole experience. I knew I sucked at swimming, but I didn't realise I sucked that BAD! I've already asked around for info about adult learn-to-swim classes, I'd really like to get my stroke corrected, so may consider doing that soon. I don't particularly like swimming, but I don't particularly like being that bad at it either!! LOL! I thought I was a runner, but I really enjoyed the bike, and my 'big' legs were such an advantage. It's opened up so many choices!

I'm checking the website every 10 minutes to see if the results are up yet. They're not! I'm just interested to see where that time placed me in the field :) Will keep you posted!!!

The day wasn't over after that though, yesterday afternoon I backed up for a 5km road run. Conditions were really really windy, so bad the road through the harbour was closed as it's too dangerous for cars. I somehow pulled out the second fastest time I've done in over a year. Go figure - whole body, legs especially were tired from the triathlon, wind resistance was insane - I thought I was going to be blown off the road to the rocks below! - but pulled that out. I'll take it!

YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEE GOAL ACCOMPLISHED!!