Turkey Tri 2010

To burn off my pre and post dinners for the past few weeks, training and competing in the local turkey tri was the plan. And I especially liked how it was only 1 exit away from my house. Score!

Having been bitten by the Tri-Bug, I've been working toward having a better performance.

The tri group that I train with had a large group of people participating as well, so it was a nice gathering.

Before I begin, there were kids participating in the race, as young as 12. It seriously was the Cutest thing. When I have kids, they are going to be triathletes.












Since I was closer I didn't need to wake up as early, I had my breakfast and got a good stretch in.











I did pretty well packing lighter this time






It was my first time swimming in a lake, and I was FREAKED out. I had nightmares the night prior of getting tangled in weeds, mud and garbage. I really didn't know what to expect and as usual, anticipated the worse.

Competing in the winter is COLD => COLD lake water.




As I entered the water, I could Not get it together. I struggled to catch my breath, I couldn't get my stroke down, It was just a mess. After the race, a group member told me because of the cold, your heart has to work harder to keep your body warm, hence making it harder for you to breathe.

I took a lot of breaks before I even made it to the 1st buoy. It was at that point I decided to just finish the race, and try to not die in the midst of it. So I did the back stroke occasionally to catch my breath and swam on. It wasn't until the 3rd buoy where we turned around before I got my rhythm back and was able to swim back to shore and finish the swim portion. I was so glad to be done with that.

The crappy thing about having a race in the park, you have to walk quite a distance, barefoot over rocks and asphalt. It was uncomfortable.. but nothing as gross as the greenish/black lake water, which I'm so desperately trying to suppress the unfortunate memories of swallowing at least 3 gulps of it.. Ew..

Trying not to cut my foot on the rocks walking up to the bikes, I suited down and rode off, the bike portion was nice, lots of hills and STRONG winds. There was one portion where my bike was being blown sideways. It was pretty creepy, so I really slowed down.

Already mentally telling myself this race isn't going as anticipated, I spotted a 51 year old lady in a neon green bike and bright green/purple jacket. She was about my pace, so I told myself to just keep up with her.



We would take turns passing each other up, until I hit the steepest incline, switched to a lower gear, and heard a terrible noise.. My bike chain falling off..
You really don't know what to do, and me, being new to biking, Really didn't know what to do. As I'm tilted at a 45 degree incline, with no chain, and a bike that isn't moving forward, I try to get out of the way and topple over.

A really nice 30 yr old guy stopped to help me up and helped put my chain back on. It was really nice of him. He said he was dying from that incline anyway and needed a break. Most people are trying to PR and can't really stop, which I understand. Quite a few people asked if i needed assistance, but that guy was helping me so I told them I was ok.

(fyi the reason why I know everyone's age is because you have to write it on your calf)

I thought at this point, I had lost the green lady for sure, but as I rode on, I found her again, and passed her, and didn't see her again til the run portion. I had beat her!!

I've been increasing my brick training, and my run portion went Much better. I was still slower than normal, but at least my legs were working.

It was So cold that I couldn't feel my toes until the 2nd mile.

Finally the race ended and I was relieved it was over.. It wasn't my most comfortable race, but I do plan to improve and train harder.


.5 mi Swim - 32 mins
14 mi Bike - 63 mins
4.5 mi Run - 52 mins