Triathlon Triumph

How's that for a title!

Anyway, hopefully you've already read Bree's account because she is so much better at describing things.

I couldn't believe the perfect weather when I woke up. The sun was my good omen. This was going to be a great race.

Kobe came along to be my cheerleader and photographer. He did a great job with the pictures...and cheering.

The swim. I love this picture---it makes my shoulders look awesome! My goal was to keep up with Bree. I had 2 sluggish swimming sessions earlier in the week and I just wasn't sure how it would go. I came out 6 minutes and 20 seconds later. I did not get my goggles kicked off and thus didn't have a black eye coming out of the water. Yes, things were going quite well.

I felt great going into the bike and had an awesome first loop (even though Bree passed me right at the end). Then......the bike chain fell off. I have trained on this course several times a week for the past 2 months and I have NEVER had a chain come off. Even better, it was stuck between the rings. I lost at least 4 minutes getting it unstuck and back on. Then adrenaline took over. I was determined to catch back up to Bree and make up the lost time. I ended up doing the bike in 44 minutes. I saw Bree leaving transition just as I was going in.

I quickly changed my shoes and headed out on the run. I was worried that I might have pushed too hard on the bike and my Asthma would cause me problems on the run. BUT I felt GREAT. I showed that nasty hill how it is done! (thanks to my Dad's perfectly timed encouragement. He knows just where to stand along the steepest part) And I ran a personal best for a 5K. I've never broken through 26 minutes, and I did it in 25:22. Woo Hoo!

The funny part was that as I was about 1/4 mile into the run I looked down and noticed blood running down my left hand. Apparently I cut it up pretty good when fixing my chain. I did the second loop on the bike and changed my shoes in transition without even noticing. Here's a picture taken after the first aide people helped me out after the race. The bandaids are covering the heavy bleeders.

I beat my time from 2 years ago by only one minute, but the bike was longer and I lost a chain. So overall I feel pretty good about that. I think I will probably be talking Bree into joining me again sometime.....

I'll end with a little mommy bragging. Later that afternoon I watched Brooklyn's gymnastics meet. She won the all-around with a score of 37.4, and got gold on the beam, vault and floor! She got silver on the bars. She is so proud. She hung that gold medal on her bedroom door.