I am so excited for this season to start up. It seems like it has been forever since my last triathlon & weekend trip with the friends.
There is no better way to start out the triathlon season than by racing the 1st race that SetUp Events puts on - Parris Island Sprint. Yes, it's actually on the Parris Island marine base. It was my third time doing this race & I was pumped! Nicole, Jeff & I headed down there Friday afternoon. We got checked in, did our normal raiding of the BiLo to get Code Red, got food and than headed back to the hotel to clean the bikes. Tell you what, I haven't laughed that hard in a very long time. We finally all got settled, Jeff conked out early, Nicole got on her phone to talk to hubby and watch her little one on video ... and I ... I got to study cardiac rhythms. Yep, that's right, I am a dedicated nursing student! Ha!
The morning came early. Thank goodness we set the alarms on our phones because the hotel wake up call did not happen. Good thing we are good friends ... we put up with A LOT from each other ... oh, so many memories that I cannot go into!! I love my friends =)
Happy St. Patties day - race day! I was wearing my stealth black uniform, but my green running shoes kept me from getting pinched. We finally made it to the race site and started to get all prepared. It was fun seeing all the familiar faces, and a few new faces too. So nice to see Orae, a highschool-er that I had met at the pool a few months ago. He had decided to do this triathlon as his senior project. When I met him, he couldn't even swim one length of the pool, but I saw him swim Friday morning he was working it! I was excited to see him here and ready to race.
The race started and people were already swimming breast stroke ... grrreat. It is finally time for me to start ... I dove in, got some great distance and came up swimming fast. I felt great! Working on my stroke technique over the winter paid off. I ended up getting stuck and having pass 7 people and I still cut 10 seconds off my swim time. My transition time would have been great, but somehow I didn't fasten my shoe and it fell off while I was running out with my bike. Woops! Guess, I'm a little rusty! I tried to keep a high cadence on the bike and continue to push it the entire time. It paid off. I cut more time off of last years bike time. Ran into transition 2 and then I was off for the run. I admit it, I am not good at pacing myself. I felt like I was pushing but don't think I was enough. About a half mile out from the finish here comes Nicole running at me. She yells for me to keep pushing and then angles towards me. I yelled for her not to come run with me so what does she do ... she runs about 2 feet behind me. I can hear her breath & I knew I had better not slow down or she would plow right into me! I finished the run with a last little surge and then dry heaved as the marine took off my timing chip. Poor guy thought he was gonna get hit!
It was a good day. I am thrilled to say I PRed & I ended up cutting almost 4 minutes off last years time. If I keep whittling off time ... soon I will get to where I want to be!!
Was great seeing you Saturday.
ReplyDeleteGreat start to the season!