Here I am...officially a triathlete! I really couldn't have asked for a better race...On Saturday night I was so nervous that I couldn't sleep. I know I got a few hours, but I definitely felt like I had just fallen asleep when the alarm went off at 5:15 on Sunday morning. I woke up and my eyes were sore...which is never good, and is a sign of the fact that I did not get much sleep. I forced myself to eat a bagel with peanut butter, but I had to read Bryan Payne's blog while I was doing it to calm myself down. There's something about reading about him drinking copious amounts of beer and completing hours and hours of training that was calming to me after a night of very little sleep and a big race coming up.
I left my house at 5:45 and got to the lake at around 6:20...which was good, I was 10 minutes earlier than anticipated. I was amazed by how well run the race was. I was expecting long lines of people waiting to get their bodies marked and lines to wait for race packets, but it was so well organized that I got my packet, got my body marked and put my number on my bike all in about 5 or 10 minutes. I was impressed. Then I set up my transition area. I wasn't really sure what to do because this was my first tri, but I have practiced transitions, so I kinda went off of that, plus I just put things where I thought they would be easiest to reach. I left some space at the end of my towel so I could step on it and dry my feet off while I was drying myself off and putting on my helmet.
While I was setting up my transition area I met a girl named Heidi. She said this was her second tri and she and I started talking. It was really nice to have someone who had done this before but who wasn't an expert to talk to. It's nice to talk to experts, but sometimes I want to know that I am not the only one who is nervous, and someone who has only done one other tri is more likely to remember the feelings I was having. She was great, she told me that she was nervous too, and we talked about the butterflies in our stomachs.
I was all set up and ready to go by about 7:00, so I called my mom. I knew she would be really nervous, but I knew it would still help me if I talked to her. She said her and my dad and my boyfriend were leaving the house and would be there before the race started. That made me feel good because I was nervous they would miss the start. I really wanted to see their faces before I started and I was worried that I wouldn't.
Around 7:15 I took a short jog to warm up my legs, and at 7:30ish I put on my wetsuit and took a short swim. The water felt warm, and, to my surprise I didn't freak out when I got in. Usually I get all short of breath and nervous even when I just go for a practice swim in open water. I took this as a good sign that it was going to be a good race. It boosted my confidence to know I didn't freak out.
We had our pre-race meeting at 7:45, and that's when the butterflies really kicked in. I couldn't even stand still during the national anthem, my legs were shaking like crazy and I was kinda jumping up and down a little. I have a new respect for kids with ADD because that's how I felt, like it was impossible to keep my body still. Finally the first wave got into the water. I was in the 4th wave, which was good and bad. It was good because I got to watch 3 waves and see how the start looked, but bad because I had to wait about 10 minutes before my wave went. My parents and Bryan showed up around this time, and they were taking pictures and looking at me the whole time. It was nice to see how proud they were.
Finally it was our turn to get into the water, and as we walked over the timing mat to get into the water for the in water start I joked with Heidi that I felt like we were at camp and getting ready to take our swimming test. It was pretty funny and it lightened the mood. As soon as I jumped in the water I had to pee...haha...so I took care of that before we started swimming...and when the horn went off I felt ok. I didn't panic, I didn't get short of breath, I just started off swimming. I did a few strokes of breast stroke first and then I started doing freestyle. The swim went really fast! My results haven't been posted yet, but when they are I will post them on here, but according to my family, it was under 20 minutes...which is amazing for me if that is true.
When I came out of the water I felt great, and I ran up to T1. My transition was pretty quick, although I wanted to give myself enough time to get my heartrate down a little before climbing on the bike. I realized when I got there that my bike had fallen over, and had a brief fear that I would be disqualified because my front tire wasn't standing on the ground...but then I got over that and realized no one cared. Haha...I also saw that I had beat Heidi out of the water, which really surprised me.
Once I got on the bike I took a few deep breaths and a sip of water/gatorade and I felt good. My heartrate went down and I got into a good groove on the bike. Heidi passed me on the bike. She was really trucking along. She said hi to me and we exchanged a few motivating words then she hammered on up the hill past me. I felt happy to see her pass me. She worked hard and had a goal to beat her last time, which she did. Nice job Heidi! The bike course was very hilly. I did most of my training on a bike path in Boston, which was very, very flat. These hills were killer. I knew there was one big hill called "cemetary hill" on the course, but it turns out there were 3 or 4 other huge hills as well. When I was on these hills I just kept saying "right, left, right, left" in my head and told myself one more pedal one more pedal and focused on going one foot at a time until I got to the top. I was proud that I didn't have to walk at all, I really pushed myself and it felt good. I actually smiled all the way up cemetary hill....I just decided that if it was gonna hurt, I may as well smile and try to make the best of it. It really worked. I felt happy the whole time, even when my legs felt like bricks and my muscles were so full of lactic acid that I thought they would explode.
I started eating my GU chomps around 2 or 3 miles into the ride. I was eating them whenever I wasn't climbing a hill, and Everytime I ate one I took a few sips of water. This seemed to work well for me, my stomach felt good the whole time and I ate all of them by about 10 miles, which worked out well because then I had 6.4 miles to get them digesting before I had to start running. I timed my water/gatorade drinking well, because I finished it about a mile before the end of the bike ride and during the run I didn't have any stomach sloshing. I felt good the whole time.
Once I got into T2 I hopped off my bike and started running it back to the rack. The ground was really uneven and I was feeling a little out of control so I slowed down and walked a little over to my rack. This transition was super quick because all I had to do was rack my bike, sip water and then grab my visor. I don't know how long it took me, but I felt like it was under a minute and a half.
The run was kinda crazy. I have never done trail running, and that's what the majority of this run was. We had to run out into the woods through some pretty large pot holes. The good part was that I was so concerned with not falling and hurting myself that I was focusing on skipping over the rocks and sticsk so I didn't think about how dead my legs felt. I did stop and walk about 20 steps because I just felt so dead, but then I decided I knew I would be dissapointed in myself if I walked alot, so I decided to stop "being a pussy" and I ran the rest of the way. I passed Heidi on the run, or I guess I should say she passed me...she was on her way back in and I was on my way out. We tried to give each other a high five but we missed....she said "you go girl!" and it was motivating to know I had a friend out there. After about a mile we came out of the woods and ran a half mile out on the road. The water stops were really cute because there were little kids giving out the water and when you ran by they would say "can we splash you?" and everyone was saying no. On my way out I took some water and gulped some of it down and then threw the rest over my head. That felt amazing. The turn around made me laugh because it was literally a little orange cone in the middle of a house lined street and there was a guy there watching to be sure you went around the cone. It was pretty hilarious.
On my way back I ran through the water station and said "ok, splash me!" Those kids went nuts! I had probably eight kids dumping cups of water over me, and one kid actually chased me and when he wasn't able to catch me he said "darn, I missed her!" Haha...it was so funny. On the way back, we ran on the same course as we did on the way out, so sometimes you passed people who were on their way out. I smiled at everyone I saw and gave thumbs up to the people who seemed unhappy. I probably pissed someone off because they might have been really not in the mood for my cheeriness, but oh well..I was happy and I wanted everyone to know. So I ran back, and then the trail split and this time we turned right to go around the lake. Apparently this part of the trail is actually a BMX bike trail, so we were running over moguls. It was actually pretty fun. My back is killing me today from the impact, but it was pretty cool at the time. I felt like I was galloping because one foot would hit the top of the mogul, the next would hit the bottom and then back to the top. It was funny. I'm sure I looked really ridiculous galloping along the moguls. After that, the rest of the run was a nice shady run along a trail by the lake. I actually really enjoyed this part. I knew I was near the end, I was full of endorphins, and I was so proud of myself that I felt like I could run forever. Then I passed what I call the "triathlon papparazzi." There was a guy squatting in the bushes with a camera, it was pretty funny. He was there taking pictures of all of us as we were about 1/2 mile from the finish line. I guess this was supposed to be the "pain picture"....so instead I put my arms up like a muscle man and gave a huge shit eating grin. The photographer seemed surprised that I had so much pep, but I was totally running on adrenaline at that point.
Coming out of the woods was weird, it was a tiny little track of dirt up a small hill when we ran out, and then we ran along the outside of a baseball fence and then around and inside the fence. I saw Bryan standing at the final corner, and when he saw me he gave me a huge smile, and that was when I kicked it up and starting sprinting to the finish.
I crossed the finish line strong, and I saw my parents standing right at the fence in front of the finish line. I looked up and my mom was balling her eyes out. She said "I'm so proud of you Lauren" and I almost started crying too. I felt so good that I can't even describe the feeling. I felt like I could do it all again because I was so high on endorphins. After the race we hung around for a while while they did awards because I wanted to wait for them to raffle the bike. Heidi won 2nd place in our age group...nice job girl! Then it got too hot and we decided to leave.
I spent the rest of the day relaxing and eating with my family and some friends. It was a great post race party and I was just on such a high all day. I was exhausted last night. Today I feel pretty good. I am not too sore, my knees kind of hurt and my back is sore, but other than that I feel pretty good! My final time was 2:15:19 I think. I am happy with that. I wanted to finish in 2:15, so I think that is great! When the final times are up I will post my splits. Thanks everyone for the support while I trained...I can't wait to begin the next adventure of training. I haven't signed up for another tri yet because I don't have a bike. I am returning my bike to Caroline this week, so if anyone knows where I can get a bike super cheap, please let me know! For now I will just keep swimming and running and biking at the gym I guess...oh, and blogging of course!
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