This sport is hard!

I’m back at home. Clean, relaxed and unpacked from a weekend
of TriCats training Camp and a little Duathlon fun.  Now that I’m full of food and re-hydrated I
can begin to try to process the past few days.. 
My conclusion: This sport is HARD!! 

Physically, I was prepared for this race and finished in
2:27.  I was amazed that I reached the
goal I had set for myself.  I thought
that I could do it sub 2:30 and did it! 
But it hurt.  My legs felt like
lead during the last half of the bike and after T2 going into the second
run.  I just kept going, cursing on the
uphill and thankful for the downhill. 
Crossing the finish line was amazing! 
I couldn’t believe that I had any energy left in me to kick it up to
that last gear.  Afterwards I was definitely
running on autopilot.  My body didn’t
quite know what to do with itself anymore and my mind hadn’t caught up yet.

Mentally, I was definitely not prepared for what it meant to
race.  Barely ten minutes into the first
run I was getting passed by the men age groupers and was steadily loosing sight
of my team mates.  We’ve got some crazy
fast TriCats!  And I was kind of pissed,
o.k. I was definitely pissed that I was getting passed by all of these 50 year
old dudes and it only continued on the bike, then the women caught up.  So, instead of motivating me to push harder I
almost felt defeated.  Then I started
yelling (literally) at my legs to go faster. 
That helped.  Then I was singing
in my head and chanting “I can die when I’m done.”  I felt better and then I got passed
again!  And then I had to repeat the
whole process to mentally pick myself back up again.  I almost broke on top of Devil Mountain
which we had to climb the last leg of the run. 
I was near tears but my legs were still working so I kept going.  So, not only was I physically exhausted but
emotionally and mentally drained.

That was my first race and I wouldn’t give it up for
anything.  I learned a lot this weekend
both about this sport and myself.  Here’s
what I walked away with: Don’t get pissed, get motivated.  Listen to Liz and run my race.  Convince myself that I can push harder.  But most importantly, remember that I’m doing
this for fun and go for a one piece trisuit!