Seattle

Vancouver & Abbotsford

Sooke, Vancouver Island, with the family

Victoria, BC

And I did it!

TOP GUN TRIATHLON 2009
This past weekend, I participated in my first ever sprint triathlon. I was quite stoked about it in the months leading up to it. Then, in the last two weeks, I got quite nervous. The morning of the race, I stood on the beach at 6:30 am and thought: "What the heck am I doing here?"
My "wave" was third - following kids, and young men. My wave was made up of 20-39 year old women. My tri-age is 30 (even though I'm not quite there yet in real age), and so I was racing against women ages 30-34. Really, I was just racing against myself and my goal time of 1 hour 30 minutes. But as I stood on that beach, everything looked daunting - the waves, the other women, the already hot sun...
But they called us down to the water and the gun went off and I had no choice but to run into the warm gulf water with the hundreds of other women in my wave.

The swim actually went pretty well. There was a lot of pushing and pulling and grabbing. The conflicts with other women combined with the salt water and waves made it not the most pleasant experience of my life, but it definately wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Fortunately, the current was perfect that morning and it actually pushed us along in the right direction. I took my underwater camera in with me and just shot randomly and look who else was swimming with us:

Just kidding! That picture is from Sea World the day before. :) Can't say sharks didn't cross my mind a time or two while I was out there though!

Anyhow, I got to where I could stand, and started running out of the water. I checked my watch - 7:55! Woo hoo! I was banking on the swim taking me between 12 and 15 minutes! So as you can see from this next picture, I was excited and filled with new energy to keep going. (Yes, that's me waving in the middle of the picture like a big dork. Notice I'm not the LAST one out of the water!)

Then came the bike. I don't have a road bike, just a hybrid. So needless to say, I was not a superstar at this portion. However, I made sure to push myself and felt great during the ride. A LOT of people passed me, but I knew that would happen. By the end of my bike ride, the 30-39 year old men who left in the 5th wave were catching up to me, and speeding by me as if they were batman. Pretty crazy. Jon didn't manage to get a picture of me on the bike, but our friend Tim is pictured here in red.

And then of course, the run. This was supposed to be the easiest event for me, but seeing as it was after a swim and a bike, I was exhausted. It was a 5k and I did it in 27 minutes which I was pretty happy about - I had allotted myself 30 minutes. Jon missed the photo ops of that event, too. I guess I just whizzed by! :) Just joking.

Mine eyes have seen the glory! The FINISH line!

Tim and I, after the race.

My biggest fan:

I'm hoping I can steal some photo samples from the company that took race photos. They might say SAMPLE all over them, but maybe there's a shot of me on the bike and on the run. If I get them, I'll post them later.

All in all, I was thrilled with the race. I was shooting for an overall time of 1hour 30minutes. I got 1hour, 16 minutes and 48 seconds! 26/55 in my age group. 20/107 first-time women athletes. 488/1000 overall.

When's the next one?