Do I look scared?  I was a little scared.

It was May 29th, the morning of my first triathlon.  I had been up since 5 am, driven an hour and a half, and finally, it was go time.

My crew (mom and Patrick) and I arrived to the Woodlake County Club with plenty of time to spare (I forget what time it was exactly, but man, it was early).  I checked in, got body marked (that’s when it felt real) and got in line for the bathroom.  Four port-a-potties for 400 athletes is um…not ideal.  Anyways…

I set up my transition area near the end of a row very close to the swim exit.  It was kinda funny to look at my $400 mountain bike racked next to a top of the line Cervelo with Zipp wheels.  Patrick and I enjoyed checking out all the nice bikes around and before I knew it, it was time for the Star Spangled Banner.

After a moment of silence it was time for the 20-29 year old guys to get in the water.  I put on my swim cap and googles, debated my wetsuit one more time, gave hugs and kisses all around and approached the water to cheer for the first waves and try not to think about what I was getting myself into.

This is slightly mortifying for me because in middle school my friends used to joke me by saying, “picture Megan bald.”  Now I know why they though that was so funny.  Thanks guys!  No, really, you’re the best! (Losers.)

It’s not that bad, right?  Right?

Anyway, no time to worry about that, it was time to swim.  I knew this would be the worst part.  I knew I was woefully unprepared.  But I also knew that I could get through it since being in the water doesn’t freak me out like some people.  I knew I would eventually make it back to shore, and that I was much more likely to get sick of swimming than actually tired of swimming.  Chance of drowning, unlikely.  Chance of going so slow the tides changed before I made it back to shore?  Slightly more likely.

My age group takes off at the gun and I put my head down and start free style swimming.  There is a little jostling, but not too bad.  I did enough research to expect this and to not let it get to me.  What did get to me was that I kept hearing voices.  Intrigued, I put my head up and looked around, there were people all around me walking.  Put your feet down, they said.  We can touch until half way out.  So I did.  I was swimming and going as fast as they were walking, and none of us were in it for the win.  What’s it gonna hurt?

We walked until we couldn’t touch any more and started swimming again.  I still hadn’t caught my breathe from the 5 minutes of freestyle earlier, so I decided to go on my back.  I did the backstroke for a bit but ran so far off course that I couldn’t see another person.  I ended up doing a stroke that I can only describe by what I remember calling it when I was a child….Chicken, T, Down.  It’s how they teach kids to swim on their back, and it was the only way I was getting to T1.  How embarrassing.  Hey, look who finally hit solid ground!

I ran up to the transition area and found my bike quickly (because there were only about 20 to choose from).  I dried my feet, slipped on my sneakers, chatted up mom and Patrick (why not?) and was on my way.  Nothing too exciting to report.

Time to set off on the bike course.  Back in March, when I bought my bike, I asked the guy at the shop if my Myka would be ok to use for short course triathlons.  “Sure,” he told me, “but it will be slow and heavy.  Only ride it if you don’t mind getting passed.”  Let me tell you, that guy is good!  I kept a pretty good cadence going on my bike throughout the whole course, but if anyone got near me on a road bike (all the fast kids with the slick tri bikes were long gone by that point), there was no way I could match them.

I decided at the start of the bike route that I couldn’t be the fastest racer, but I could be the nicest.  I made sure to thank every volunteer that I passed on the course, made the lady at the turn around point laugh, and cheered for the first few riders that were headed back in to finish up with the run.

The bike route started out in the country club, and ventured onto three other roads in an out and back fashion.  All of the hills were on one long stretch of road around the 4 and 8 mile point.  I heard a lot of people talking about saving their legs for the hills while standing in line for the port-a-potty, but honestly I didn’t think it was that bad.  I guess all the “hill training” (a.k.a. mountain biking) I had been doing worked.  Yay, a positive for me!

Did I mention the strange noise my bike was making yet?  Don’t let me forget to tell you about that after the race.

Finally I made it back to transition, an hour and a half later (I might as well have been on a Sunday fun ride).  Most of the competitors were finished up, eating hot dogs and checking their times.  I still had a 5k to run!

I started out on the run course with legs like jelly.  I had practiced a few short brick work outs, but running off the bike is still the strangest sensation to me.  The course was not that well marked, so I actually had to stop for a second to ask someone if we were really supposed to run down that dirt path through the woods, we were, and a girl came up to me with the same question.  I forgot to mention it earlier, but she was the only girl I passed on the bike the whole day (I also passed a dad and his 9 year old son, and that totally counts).  We decided to do the trail run…er…5k together since she was feeling a little crampy also.  It was nice to have someone to talk to after being left to my own devices for so long.

We were meandering along down the path, running my usual slow pace, and she said, “you know, I used to run in high school and I would have laughed so hard at someone going this pace and considering it running.”  Ha.  Ha…hmm.  Yeah.  Luckily, she didn’t want to pick it up any, or I would have been dropped.  We both had trouble with cramping, me with my legs and her with her stomach, so we took a couple of one minute walk breaks, and finally, finally, finally were able to see the finish line.  We picked up the pace a hair and ran it in together.  That finish line felt amazing!

After I got my medal I found Patrick and mom, both of which reluctantly gave me big hugs (I did smell like a lovely mixture of sweat and lake water, so I don’t blame them too much) and a huge cup of gatorade.  I insisted that we stay for the awards ceremony and raffle which was – let’s be honest – way more important.  It was starting in about 5 minutes anyway.

I laid on my blanket and kept listening for them to call my ticket.  Most of the people had already left so I figured my chances were pretty good, but I still managed to not win anything.

No matter though, I was feeling pretty good about my day.  I chatted happily with mom and Patrick as I told them about different parts of the race.  I mentioned to Patrick that my bike was making a funny noise in the back.  After assuring him that it was indeed my bike and not me (that jerk!), he took a look and what do you know!  SOME Mr. Fixit guy had decided to finally show me how to change a tire the night before, with my rear wheel as the example and oh, what’s that?  He did the breaks wrong and that noise I was hearing my whole ride was the BREAKS RUBBING THE TIRE.  Thanks a lot sweetheart.  That had to add a good what..hour to my bike split?

To be honest, I don’t know what my split was.  I don’t know what any of them were.  I know I came in around 2:20 based on the time at the finish line, and I know that is really slow for a 600 yd, 17 mi,3.1 mi race.  The thing is though, those times don’t really matter to me.  What matters much more is that I had a blast doing it, learned a lot, and came away rearing to go again.  I’m not going to look up my actual split times because they will be really sad they don’t tell the story of my day.  I know that I need numbers to work against and compare to, so I will be better the next time.  I think I’ll use my next race as a baseline.  I want to remember this one as I experienced it, with wide eyes and tired legs and appreciation of what my body can do, not how fast it can do it. That is what I will take away from this race.  That is what I will make sure I never forget, no matter what the race.

1) We only had camera phones on the morning of the race and didn’t know how to get them onto the computer

2) Patrick and I spent every waking minute after the tri cleaning, painting and packing our townhouse.

3) We moved 15 hours away to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

4) I haven’t done anything else impressive to write about, so I was worried I would run out of material.

Right, so that explains up until the end of June.  What about all of July?

Here’s the real deal…ever since we moved here, I have not been feeling it.  At all.  I’m having a really hard time adjusting to the heat, humidity and lack of running, and its got me down.

I’m working through that though, so I will post a recap of the tri soon and then be back with a new plan and a new outlook.  See you on the other side!

The important things to know are that 1)I was really really slow and 2)I had a freaking blast. 

So, I’m looking at the rest of the year and finding all sorts of races that I hope I can sign up for.  Here’s what I’m looking at:

Meat Pie Tri

Snake Bite Triathlon

Cajun Cup 10k

New Orleans Jazz Half Marathon

Cajun Man Triathlon

Sounds fun huh?

Are you confused?  Oh, did I fail to mention that in just 2 short weeks, Patrick and I are packing up the car and moving down to Baton Rouge?  That’s right, Cajun Country!

Patrick was offered an Equine Internship at LSU that he couldn’t pass up, so we are off to the land of Mardi Gras for a year to immerse ourselves in King Cakes, Crawfish Boils, Hurricanes (only the drink, I hope) and of course, the local race scene.  I have been doing my homework and it looks like the afterpartys are just as serious as the races.  Woohoo, I think I’ll like it there!

Painting.

Painting.

Painting.

Want to join?

This weekend will be quite active, or tomorrow morning will be at the very least. After months of anticipation, it’s time for the Woodlake Sprint Triathlon. I’ll get a race report up as soon as possible next week.

Other than that, we have a wedding Saturday night and plan on repainting the inside of the house Sunday and Monday. Look for sore arms and shoulders come Tuesday.

Have a great weekend!

On Sunday we are heading down to the beach in South Carolina for a week to relax before things really pick up for us this summer.  I do plan on getting in some ocean swims in my spiffy new Xterra wetsuit.  My first triathlon is next Saturday!  Am I prepared?  NO!  Am I excited?  Heck yes!

Photo Credit.

Information About Your Medication - Running Times.  Running should make it all feel better, right?

Interesting Things We Think About During Our Runs – Runner’s World Forums.  My thoughts are all over the place when I run.  I should actually probably focus more on running!

Lucy Shorts and Tank Review – Chic Runner.  Danica gets to review all sorts of sweet running products.  Probably because she’s such an awesome blogger (and runner, of course!).

Finding the Time to Work Out - Fitness.com.  This is hard for everyone.  For me, it has been especially hard during the last 2 weeks.

Jillian Michaels: I’m Pre-Disposed to Obesity – The Huffington Post. This may be true, but she turned herself into a kickass trainer with a rockin body.  I’m a big fan!

Take 5: Fitness Articles are a round up of interesting articles I have found over the course of the week.  We might talk about yoga, we might talk about strength training, we might talk about calories and nutrition.  We also might just talke a tour around blog land and look at what others are up to.  Articles were not necessarily published in the week of  this blog post.

1.  This program works.  It does, and it’s that simple.  You go from about a total of 8 minutes running (with lots of walking in between) to 30 minutes of running, but the change is gradual and as you go you build not only strength and endurance, but also confidence that you can do it.  This is the most important thing.

2. But you have to do it at your own pace.  The program is designed to be done over a 9 week period.  However, the beauty of the program is that you do it only for you.  So if you need to take a week off, repeat a week, or stop completely and pick it up 2 months later, you can.  It’s that easy!  There’s no drill sargent or PE teacher making you run.  You do it because you want to.  I was lucky in that I was able to finish right at the 9 week mark.  I didn’t have to fight a cold, overcome an injury or miss time due to a vacation.  But if you do, so be it.  The program will be waiting on you when you are ready.

3.  Find support.  My husband was great about supporting me as I spread my baby wings and started this journey.  He always made sure to ask how my run went.  But…he couldn’t be less interested about going out and doing it himself.  I was looking for a little extra support and motivation so I joined up with an awesome group of ladies on the Active.com forum.  The trials and jubliations of this group have really kept me going.  The Beginner’s group on the Runner’s World forums is another great place to look for motivation.

4. Celebrate your successes.  One thing I and many others noticed in the online forum is that we were all so quick to bemoan our misses and downplay our success.  I think this is the curse of being a woman.  However, one of the blessings of being a woman is seeing and encouraging others when they need that helping hand.  We all need to work on patting ourselves on the back more.  So your 25 minute run was hard?  Remember when you couldn’t run 5?  Celebrate what you are able to do everyday.

5.  Pick a new goal. During the C25k program I have learned that I work best with a plan.  I’m looking at a few different options for extending my endurance, with an eye towards a half marathon sometime in early 2011.  I know, that is forever away and maybe I could do one sooner, but I really want to treat my body right and slowly seems to be the best way to do that.  Of course, I also need to get in lots of swim and bike training for triathlons, but again, find what works for you and do it!

Day 2: The weather was much more agreeable, I finally found a run around the neighborhood that equals 3 miles (ok, 3.15, but who’s counting?) and ran it in 30 minutes.  Go me!

Day 3: Graduation day!  I kept my time consistent from Day 2, funny thing was, my legs felt like they had more to give.  That’s new!

Now I’m off to subscribe to Runner’s World magazine, one thing I promised I would get for myself after successfully completing the program.  The other is a pair of real running shoes with a professional fit, which I will take care of later this week.  Excited!!!

Check back later for my final thoughts on the C25k program.

Not much to report on for this upcoming weekend.  Patrick is graduating from Vet School on Saturday so we are going to be busy celebrating!

Check in Monday or Tuesday on my personal blog to hear all about it!

Have a good one

Photo Credit.