Dare to Tri

My friend Anita stopped by my house in the spring and asked if I would do the Maple Grove Triathlon with her.  RJ had decided to do his own triathlon to save his life (by swimming in the pool vs the lake) and his money.  I wasn’t very motivated to train and do a race any Saturday morning by myself.  He supported me in signing up.  I was excited about the race until packet pickup when I saw so many super fit people.  Anita and Terra parked their cars at my house and we rode our bikes down to the park early Saturday morning.  I was supposed to meet RJ to give him my clothes and flip flops but he didn’t show.  I started (1/3 mile swim) at 8:29 a.m. with a wave of novice swimmers.  I decided to be in front of the pack this time and make people swim around me instead of getting stuck behind others.  I felt good until I swallowed water while “breathing” on my left side.  I switched to breast stroke with my head above water to catch my breath.  My goggles fogged up and I thought about trying to tread water and clean them out but instead put them on my head and invented a new stroke.  It was a combination of a side stroke and front crawl/free style. I know it wasn’t pretty but I had my head above water so I was breathing well and I seemed to be cruising.  I greeted the lifeguards as I strolled along and encouraged a struggling swimmer next to me.  I kept thinking I should put my face back in the water, after all it was my goal this year to swim free style the whole way, but I felt so comfortable with my new invention I just embraced it.  Dan (Anita’s husband) told me later that I was one of the first ones out of the water in my heat.  I ran to the transition area, got my clothes, advil, and bike and hit the road (14 miles).  I tried to catch up to Terra who was three waves ahead of me but I never did.  I couldn’t listen to music which made the ride see long.  RJ told me he and the kids would watch for me on the corner of 89th and Dunkirk (a stones throw from our house).  I looked forward to seeing a familiar face but there were only strangers on the corner.  As I descended the hill into the park, I heard someone cheer my name but it took a minute to register.  I had a hard time finding the spot to return my bike.  I finally did find it and hit the trail for my run (3 miles). My legs were a lot more tired that I had anticipated them being.  My only goal was to run the whole thing.  There was a steep hill that took me a mile to recover from.  I felt a little lonely running alone this time as I remembered what it was like to run with RJ the previous year.  I felt good as I finished but didn’t see RJ anywhere.  I later found him and he missed me coming in because he took McKenna to the bathroom.  He pretty much missed everything which was really disappointing.  He took a picture of me before heading home.

I did enjoy training and competing in this race.  I wanted to finish in under than two hours and my total time was 1:38:05.  I was 484 our of 1,200 triathletes.  My swim was 11:58, T1- 3:34, bike-51:43, T2- 1:37, run- 29:13.