I did it! I signed up for; trained and successfully completed my first 1/2 iron distance triathlon. It was great! I had so many concerns, nerves and doubts approaching the day of the race but it turned out better than I thought it would. I actually really really enjoyed it. The swim is still my mental nemesis but that is totally on me to fix and within my realm of possibilities to make it more comfortable.
I'll start from the morning. We woke up super early to ensure we got time to get things going and organized and get out the door. We had 3 other triathlon participants staying with us at the house so it was a lot of triathlon 'stuff' around. Once we got our bellies full and made sure our bags were all packed appropriately and our bikes were pumped up we loaded our 2 cars and headed to the start.
(from day before dropping off run gear)
This year they changed the race so that your T1 and T2 (transition from swim to bike and then bike to run) were in 2 different places. I liked how it worked actually. It seemed to give you a decent amount of space to have your gear. The only thing that was a little tricky was that T2 was where you were to go first to park and either drop off your run gear or check on it if you dropped off the day before (which we had) .... then you had to ride your bike with your bike gear bag and your wetsuit and swim gear in your morning bag. Me riding in the semi-dark with 2 bags and a ton of other people walking / riding their way to the start area made it a little stressful. I was SURE I was going to crash because I was trying to figure out how to hold these 2 bags while holding my handlebars. Somehow I made it safely with no crashes.
I could totally feel the energy in the air and was starting to get so excited! I've only spectated this event before but always fall in love with the energy in the morning and on race morning for me it felt even more palpable. So once I made it to T2; Dave and I parted ways for a bit so we could each go setup. I found my bike rack and had plenty of space. I chatted a bit with other ladies in my area and was feeling better because there was a mix of people just as nervous (if not more) than I plus another handful of those more experienced trying to tell us it was going to be awesome.
I made sure my bike gear was all laid out the way I wanted and my snack box was loaded and then kinda mulled around a bit because I didn't have much to do. I finally decided to get into the bottom part of my wetsuit and then go check on the boys who happened to all be in the same area. This part was weird for me because I felt like I should be doing something but really I was just in waiting mode. Dave and his brother and friend started about 20 minutes before me so I made sure I had my morning clothes bag to drop off on my way out of transition and we headed down towards the start area. I loved that I had a 20 minute delay behind them because that way I could spend a little time at the port-o-potties ;) After that it was time for me to fully dress and get in line.
This part was a tad confusing for me and probably mostly because I wasn't really looking hard or paying attention to time but the start was in waves and my wave had pink caps but the line to the swim start was just a long line and you kinda had to look ahead and shimmy your way until you seemed to be surrounded by your color caps. Luckily I seemed to do that fairly easy and was just now waiting and we slowly walked like a herd of sheep down towards the water. I was getting anxious and also my feet were starting to hurt because the walkway down to the water was not carpeted and seemed to be kind of rocky. I think it helped to take my mind off the swim though :) We finally made it to the ramp where the guy handling the waves was separating everyone. I think each wave had maybe 3 minutes between them.. So as soon as the wave ahead of you got the gun you were allowed into the water to swim to the start 'line' where the people sitting on surf boards was sort of holding everyone back until the gun goes off. This was my chance to get my arms moving a bit on the way to the start line and try to loosen up. Just enough time but not too much that I started to stress. At this point I knew it was too late to turn back. Then the gun goes off!!!
To be continued.........
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