My cousin and I ready for the start.
It looked like a perfect day out there when we first started...
That's my wave - a wave is a group of people starting at the same time. Since there are too many people to all start together, they break you down by age and have a new group start every three minutes. I am actually in there. It is hard to see but I am the closest person at the back with a white swim cap and a blue swimsuit.
Then the fog 'rolled in'...more like came charging in at the speed of light! Notice the horizon now, this is only about ten minutes from the last pic and looking out at the same island as before! What island? Yeah, it's gone.
After the sprint triathletes (shorter distance) got out of the water, I suddenly found myself all on my own. Well, me and the fog, that is. I had a hard time seeing the buoys so I went even slower...that's my arm. :)
I got into a swim club about a month ago and the coaching has greatly improved my swimming skills, but I am still slow. I can now swim the crawl for long distances, but I always forget to kick. I don't know why but I plan to fix it before I do another race, that is for sure. Anyway, you know you are far back when you get an escort in. I am in the water between all those people below. They decided to carry on a conversation while I swam in. Thanks! I thought this meant I was in last place but apparently there was one more person behind me...so, second to last.
I know it looks bad, but honestly, I was pleased with myself. I felt really good and swam the furthest I have ever swam in my life...1500m (just 100m short of a mile). It is a very long way and I was very nervous about it. Only a month ago I could only swim 100m at a time without stopping.
Yeah, so anyway, that is me getting out of the water feeling like a champion and telling the guy, "I just swam the furthest I have ever swum in my entire life!" He laughed and encouraged me to keep going.
And keep going I did...this is a ridiculously long transition...we had to run all the way up the beach, across the grass and to grandmother's house, oh, I mean across the parking lot to where our bikes were sitting. It was a five minute transition for me cause I spent two minutes getting there. :) Oh, well, I passed my first three people on it too.
Our next objective was to bike 25 miles...
Just a view of my cousin biking in the 'beautiful' surroundings...it's winter in the desert, that's for sure!
I had a solid race for me on the bike and caught up to most of the crowd before we headed out for the 10k (6.2mile) run.
I had a good solid run and passed a lot of people during this leg of the race. Minus the side aches I had the first two miles of the run, I felt really good all day. I could tell my legs were just jelly before the run even started so it turned mental at about the two hour mark. Six miles feels like forever when you start it tired!
We were both just ecstatic to finish, as that was the first goal. But, as always, the secondary goal is to beat each other...so close, yet not quite, he beat me by three minutes. Three minutes! If only I could swim! I got 6th place overall for the women...which I thought was really good considering how far back I started. We have decided, though, that I need to learn to swim faster since if I had had even an average time in the swim, I would have won the race. Sad!
Oh, and I made it in under the three hours...2 hours, 53 minutes. It was a long time to race and I am already sore so I think a couple days off is on the agenda. :)
My cousin's girlfriend, who is always our photographer. It is a long day so I am always amazed at what a trooper she is! Thanks to my good friend, Jen, who was willing to be at our house by 6am, we were able to let the girls keep sleeping and then she watched them all morning. I appreciate it girl!
This is just a bonus for the road...K and Z playing earlier this week. When they walked out of the playroom looking like this, I HAD to snap the shot! They then asked me to put music on so they could dance. Ha!
Well, God Bless! Hope you have a wonderful weekend!
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