I am officially a triathlete!!

The race this morning was amazing. Where to start...

I arrived a little later than I would have liked (surprise) and was a little rushed. I went to put my bike in transition and set up my stuff. I found my spot, but I couldn't figure out how to get my bike onto the rack. The ones around me were hanging either by their seat or their handlebars, but I couldn't get mine to do that. I asked the lady next to me, and she gave a couple of suggestions, watched them not work, then said just to use the kickstand. Much easier :)

It was my first time wearing a swim cap, and that felt a little funny. I'm used to feeling water in my hair. Not a big deal, just odd.

The swimmers were divided into eight waves which went out five minutes apart. One group was at the starting line, another group was in the water, and the next group was at the side of the lake. My group was orange (which was the color of our caps). I got out into the water and decided to be at the complete back of my group. Hanging out, treading water, feeling OK. The blue group was behind ours, and those ladies got in and crowded up the back of us. I couldn't even tread water without smacking into one of them. Their conversation among themselves indicated that they knew they were crowded, but they didn't do anything about it. It's one thing to be crowded in a place where you are standing or sitting. It's another one entirely to be crowded where feet on the floor is a bad thing. (I don't know how deep the lake is there, but it's over my head, and that's all I need to know ... not that I would have wanted to put my feet on the bottom. Ew.)

So the horn went off and we started, heading east in Tempe Town Lake. Problem #2 in the swim: my goggles fogged up pretty instantly. Between that and looking into the sun, I couldn't see where I was going. So I'd swim a little, stop, take off my goggles, look to see where I was, put them back on, swim a little, etc. Annoying at best. Once I got around the buoy, the problem subsided. Heading north I had a lot of bumping issues with people nearby. I drank a lot more of Tempe Town Lake than I would have liked, but that's just how it goes sometimes. Anyway, heading west was great. I had a nice, easy stroke going, could look up and spot without stopping, most of the time, didn't have too much groping with other swimmers. There were two or three ladies from my wave who finished behind me.

I got out and ran to transition. It wasn't too hard to get switched into biking mode, but I did have some trouble getting my socks on. I wasn't sure how much I needed to dry my feet, as I've not run or biked in wet socks and didn't want blisters. Pretty quickly, the "screw it, I gotta go" kicked in, I got everything on and headed out.

I did the whole race in Skins, compression clothes (in my case, long sleeved and long legged) that have UV-blocker built in. I had sewn some cloth onto a sweatband and wore that under my helmet, so the cloth covered my ears and the back of my neck. This let me not worry about too much sunscreen.

So I only needed to put on shoes, socks, bandana, sweatband, helmet, get some gum and head out. It felt like it took a long time, but I'm not sure that it actually did.

About two miles into the bike course, the "what the hell was I thinking?" kicked in. Fortunately, it passed pretty quickly. It was a two-loop course with a little up-and-down, but nothing too severe. As I was coming over the Mill Avenue bridge near the end of my first lap, the woman who finished first crossed the finish line. It was the only point in the race where I felt really really slow. (Of course, I was really slow, but that's not the point ;)) The second loop was much better mentally than the first loop and was therefore probably faster, though I don't actually know. I had some good pushing at the end and finished pretty strong.

And then I got off my bike and was really pretty ready to go home.

I tried to joke with the volunteer at the entrance to transition. "I'm supposed to run now?" She gave me an explanation of where to put my bike and where to run to.

The ladies at the water stations were much less serious. I joked with some that I thought this race was multiple choice, "clarified" with one that this was a 5K walk, and at the last water station, just stopped and chatted for a minute. I was so tired. I did end up walking probably half of the run and only really ran the last 0.1 mile. The rest was a jog. It's OK. I did it.

With less than a mile to go, I was so happy and excited and proud, I started to tear up. I was able to put that away, telling myself I could cry when I was done. But right at about that time, I started to have trouble breathing. My throat got super-tight. I stopped running and just walked, of course, calmed down, and it went away. I figured it was just part of getting all emotional, I started running again, and it was OK. After I finished (at which point I felt no compulsion to cry), it happened again, and it continued to happen off and on for an hour or more. Once I had lunch, it stopped. I don't know if they're related or not, but it was definitely the most unpleasant part of the morning.

I had enough energy left to sprint-ish the last 0.1 mile, and then was completely wiped. I sometimes feel funny, going that fast at the end, when it's really pretty evident that I hadn't gone that fast all morning, but it's OK. Strong finish. I had good finishes to all three legs.

All the while, some friends were my cheering section. One had T-shirts made that they all wore. They saw me off at the beginning, cheered when I got out of the lake, cheered when I came by (both directions) for both loops of the bike ride, cheered when I was running. It was very very cool to have a cheering section :) One took pictures, but I haven't seen them yet.

There were pro photographers all over the place at the event. I just signed up to get a notification when my photos are ready.

After walking around, standing around, cooling down, some of us went out for a tasty lunch. I tossed my gym bag into a friend's car, not realizing until much later that my keys were in the gym bag. Oops. Fortunately, I had been flaky enough to leave one of my doors unlocked (I have one of three cars left on Earth with manual locks), so I could get in to get my change of clothes. I changed right there in the parking deck, and another friend, who had been carrying some of my stuff, gave me a ride :)

The other point of note from this morning is that I was able to walk around in public for 4.5 or so hours in clothes tight enough to be called "skins" and didn't even think about it. This is good :)

Also, while it was quite warm this morning, and I had on long-sleeved, long-legged tight black clothes, I didn't feel especially hot. The wicking properties really did a lot, and I suspect that not having the sun beating on my skin helped, too.

Currently (about 8 hours after finishing), my body feels pretty good. My head feels a little woozy and I'm a little tired, but overall, I feel great! I'm interested to see how all the muscles feel tomorrow. If I have sore anything, it'll be legs or maybe shoulders (tension). I've swum the swim distance many many times without residual soreness. Since I didn't train my legs as much as I would have liked (stupid hamstring injury), the biking was a little rough on them. We'll see...

That's my story! It was a great experience, and I'm thinking about doing another one in the fall. I can't imagine doing a longer one. If nothing else, I don't like running enough to do a longer distance.