Alarm goes off & I lay in the bed. "Do I really have to get up? I don't want to do this." Well, I got up. I had to. One of my TNT athletes, Jennie, was doing this as her 1st tri ... so I better be there! This is the 4th triathlon of the season for me & ready or not here it comes.
It was great seeing all the familiar faces ... & meeting some new ones too! Everyone comes out to this race. Lots of hammer heads here. Well, while I'm there setting up my TA, talking w/ all my friends, stretching & then hearing the pre-race music blaring I finally started to get excited about the race. I think Karma was right. There is a different vibe at the races when Nicole isn't there. And, I can't wait for her to be back, even if it's just to cheer.
SWIM: Another floating start. My strategy for these is this: I wait about waist deep, while everyone else is already treading water. Once Jeremy says we have 1min until we start. THEN, I swim to the front of the group. They probably all hate me, but I always find an open slot & then I haven't waisted energy treading water for 3min. And, then I get some "quite time" as I stand there all by myself to get syched up. It works for me.
I wasn't sure who was racing in my age group, but because it was CLEMSON I was afraid the competition would be stiff. I pushed hard on the swim. Went a little wide going out & coming back in, but once I hit the sand I took off running up the big hill. It is so fun to hear people yell "Go Sarah!" There seemed to be quite a few there that knew me. I was able to pass about 4 or 5 people as I ran into TA. Both transitions were fast for me. I didn't fall over trying to put my shoes on or anything!
BIKE: The bike was rolling hills. It was a fun course until I lost my chain going up a hill. Call it operator error. Normally you can ease it back on .. not this time. I ended up having to get off my bike, using both hands, struggled, but finally got it back on. Oh, and guess what other issues I had? That's right, GI issues. I've really got to figure this puking issue out. "Oh well, keep going" I told myself. I needed to make up some time after all that, so I cranked it out. At the last turn onto the main road our bike lane got smaller & we had to go pratically one by one. These 2 crazy guys infront of me slowed way down. Grant it, it was a sharp turn, but hello ... we are racing here. I ended up yelling at them "keep moving!!" And, of course beat them into T2.
T2 was awesome! 41sec thank you very much! =)
RUN: On to the run. Ah, the run again? It was not fun, but I got through it. It was an out and back, that had a couple really long hills and then one real nasty uphill.
Jeff & I hung around just incase. Turns out I got 2nd in my AG! WooHoo! Then it was off for another 40mi bike ride. Jeff only made a few wrong turns. Just in case we had gotten lost (he doesn't have the best track record) I took extra liquid! Woa budy! There are lots of hills in Clemson, the sun was HOT, and that new TriSports.com uniform is cut more than my normal tops. Lets just say I got crispy!
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