Like a Turtle Riding a Donkey (i.e. I'm Not the Fastest Cyclist)

I stumbled out of the swim and TriGuy was there, camera in hand.  I asked him when Ann Marie had come through.

I set about getting myself  through T1 and since I was right next to the fence, TriGuy came around to take pictures.  I was so diligent shaky and dizzy that it took me 6 minutes to make it through.  TriGuy was helpful by documenting the adventure.  He was able to document a lot.

I ran walked my bike up the hill and took a nice long drink out of my water bottle, since I didn't want to have to crash stop and drink on the way.

I hopped on the bike and traced the crescent moon.

I hopped off, repositioned to point the bike the right way (yes that happened)...and then, I was off!

I knew that my new bike would make me a bit slow so I expected some passing to take place.  But  I didn't really expect EVERY FLIPPIN' person to overtake me.  I was in an auditory bombardment of:

It. Was. Maddening.

And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, the 11 year old girl passed me...  And I never caught up. Buuuut, that's ok because she had a road bike and I was working harder than all those fancy road bike riders. Yep. That's m'story and I'm stickin' to it.

Honestly, that's about all I remember of the bike leg, except that I have a vague recollection of being passed by some dude on a really old bike.  Oh, and I'm pretty sure he was shirtless.

And hairy.

NEXT POSTS: AN AWARD POST TO BREAK UP THE MONOTONY OF THE RACE
                      THE RUN LEG OF THE RACE

You Wearin' a Cup Under that Wetsuit?

Wait, let me back up a little.  I did two sprint triathlons this past summer.  This is a recap of the swim leg of the first race that I did with my buddy Ann Marie.

The morning of: we all got up bright and early.  After a hearty breakfast we headed downstairs to rack our bikes and warm up (staying at the site of the race is fabulous!)  Ann Marie and I suited up and headed to the water.  We targeted a pole as our distance marker.

The water was c-c-c-cold but clear and beautiful.  We met at the post and then headed back to shore.  I looked up for Ann Marie but couldn't find her!

TriGuy keenly observed the whole thing.

Heh.

I felt I'd had a successful warm-up, the blocked ears no worse for wear, so I was in it to win it hopefully (not) finish (last).

Since Ann Marie is waaay younger than me, we were in different waves.  She was off first and was a tad nervous.

But, she took off and swam like a champ!

Then it was my turn.  I knew it would take a bit to get my groove on, but since the water was clear I could see the bright orange rope that tied down the buoys.  It was like pool swimming; just follow the line!

It was fabulous.

But then about halfway through, I started getting swum over.

And over and over and over again.

For what felt like for EVER. It was the wave behind me overtaking me. I really did try to move off the buoy line but by then there were just people all over. I still kept swimming, even when the guy in front of me decided he'd walk on the rocks rather than swim.

One thing that had been drilled into my head was to swim until your stomach hits the ground. That way when you stand up you're right at the shore, as opposed to wading through several feet of lake, wasting time and energy.

Ta-Da!

Soooo...as I felt the sand coming up to meet me I just stayed down swimming a few more strokes to be safe. I felt the water pushing me a bit and figured that was the tide (lakes totally have tides). I stood up and stumbled out of the water. Turns out those "extra strokes" really just took me beyond the swim exit a good oh, 15 feet.

NEXT POST:  THE BIKE LEG, WHERE EVERYONE INCLUDING AN 11 YEAR OLD GIRL IS FASTER THAN ME


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