First Race--Tinfoilman

As time drew near, I headed down to the dive tank area and got a few lengths in for warm up.  As I would realize later during the swim I was not nearly warmed up enough.  So the swim starts and I'm feeling really strong and going pretty hard.  I start counting laps, but then quit about half way through because I am ready to die and drown and just let the swim be over with.  Instead, of quiting of course I kept going and made sure to catch a good breath after each length (I don't do the whole flip turn deal...yet!).  Finally, as I'm cursing the person who is counting my laps (for not letting me end my swim faster...though I realize she has no control of how fast or slow I swim, lol), she lowers the signal thing into the water and I turn and sprint down to the end and get out.

As soon as I'm on my feet I realize how insanely exhausted I am.  I bested my estimated swim time by over a minute, and consequently I now felt as if i was wearing a weighted vest.  At this point I'm lethargically jog-walking through the transition area--my legs don't seem to want to cooperate--and I arrive at my transition spot and start getting the gear on (as I'm doing this a fellow Tricat runs out and gives me a good cheer...thanks).  So in transition I go as slow as physically possible putting on some socks and my bicycling shorts.  I could hardly manage to put on my cycling jersey as I was so tired and, being wet, the jersey was getting stuck on my back.  I wrestled all the gear on, took some great tasting gel and sports drink and was off...pushing my bike through transition.  I hoped on and started to go.

I saw someone biking slowly in front of me so I thought I'd be awesome and stand up on my pedals and sprint by them.  At first I felt good as the bike portion went on, but then I started noticing a small headache developing.  Oh well I thought and I just kept pedaling past people.  During my first stretch on Euclid I got trapped by some slower bikers, but then managed to get by them.  Can't complain too much about the bike portion...it was uneventful...i simply did three laps and my legs started feeling better as I went on.  As i finished my three laps, though, I did have some wonderful Tricats cheering me on!

Transitioning to the run was much quicker!  I actually had my wits about me...some blood was managing to get to the brain at this point in the race.  Take a drink of water and I'm off.  Since I had done some brick workouts before I was probably the most confident with this stretch of the race (plus I like the awkward feeling of running after biking...so strange).  And it was pretty sweet to have all kinds of people cheering you on right as the run starts.  I settled into the run and made sure to grab some water at the first station and pour it on my head (because it always looks so cool when ironman racers do this at Kona...you've all seen the NBC coverage!).  As I'm running around the race course I keep seeing a fellow teammate about a half lap ahead of me...we point from afar, encouraging one another to keep going strong.  As I get closer and closer to the end of the final lap I keep thinking about when I am going to speed up so I can come to the finish line at full speed (without collapsing and dying any time earlier).  As soon as I hit the turn onto Cherry street I decide now is the time to go.  There was some guy not too far in front of me and wanted to try and catch him.  I didn't, but I did end strong, threw my hands up at the finish line for photogenic purposes and then wanted to fall to the ground from exhaustion.  Teammates were there to celebrate, and it was crazy awesome.  The first thing I said was...(referring to the race of course) "hardest thing I've ever done in my life."

And it was, but I can't wait to do it all over again!