oohhhhh.. I'm gonna like this

Sunday was my first race! It was AWESOME!!!! Every part about it I was excited about, and at the end of it- I was happy with my performance. Here's the breakdown.



The plan:
Get up at 6am, eat a healthy, hearty breakfast packed full of goodness that will fuel me for the day. Recheck everything I had packed the night before to make sure I didn't forget a thing. Pack lunch and snack foods for the day to avoid tummy grummbling and fatigue. Leave the house by 6:50 just to ensure I have more then enough time to drive to Orangeville and be at registration for 8am. Get settled into my transition area, check, double check and re-check that everything is in place, and then have the hour or so until my 9am start time to warm up, go for a jog, stretch and focus.

What actually happened:
Hit snooze three times. CRAP!!! Jump out of bed at 6:45. Eat little bowl of raisin Bran with a few berries (for good measure really), grab granola bar for lunch and two bananas, cram what ever gear, clothing or anything that looked useful that was hanging around the vicinity of my duffle, into jam packed duffle and race out the door with Powerbar in teeth. Put bike in car, go back in house to get directions to race- on the road at 7:10. Does anyone know how far away Orangville really is? Because by 8:30 when I have already been doing 140KM up hwy 10 for an hour.. I'm starting to think it's further away than I had expected.

Get to site at 8:45- crap.. race starts in 15min.... panic... ah..this could be bad. Get to registration- my race time is 9:45.. whew... heart rate settles. I'm back on schedule. No need for warm up now, already sweating.

Okay. So the morning didn't exactly go as planned, but luckily enough, all turned out well. There was another race that started at 9am, and I got to watch and get a feel of what this is all supposed to look like. 9:30 rolls around and I'm ready to get going. Here's my T1 with my bike.. looks pretty organized huh?!?!


9:40 and I'm ready to start- over to the boathouse I go and here's how it all went down:

Swim- I was so pumped. I was so excited to get into that water and get going that I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest. I had a feeling this was going to be my biggest challgenge of the race, but I was soooo ready in get in that water! We all lined up, and were each going to start individually 5 sec apart. There was no rush to the water and none of the water thrashing, legs kicking, arms flailing kind of thing- very anti-climatic actually. I started strong and felt good. My heart rate was already high from anticipation which actually did me a favor I think. I melted into "work mode" and just fell right into my groove, I felt great. One arm over the other- stroke-stroke-breathe-stroke-stroke-breathe-repeat. About half way through, I was really gasping for air and starting to worry about my heart rate now.. I switched into breast stroke for a minute, which left me feeling a bit like I was giving in to easily, but it did do me some good. Just a minute or so to regulate my breathing, and back into my freestyle. This was probably a good move- I felt much stronger after the short break.

As I watched the swimmers from the first race before me come out of the water, I was curious as to why there were a bunch of guys waiting at the waters edge to help the swimmers out. I thought that is was a bit excessive to have these guys there- so dramatically helping the weary women out of the lake. I mean- we're athletes, not "fair ladies" and honestly, it's a 750M swim, no one here is swimming an Ironman... but let me tell you.. when I finished my measly 375M swim, I damn well almost pulled those men into the lake trying to keep myself from falling over. I'm not exactly sure how I got from the water to the first transition.. because I'm almost positive that my legs didn't take me. They were complete noodles! Not only could I barely breath, but for that minute and a half that it took me to run from the water, into transition, pull on my bike shorts and shoes, then run out to get on my bike... my memory is a bit foggy.. but I'm fairly certain my legs had no part of it!

Bike: I like the bike. I like to think I have really strong legs, so the bike part of this race was actually quite easy. um..hmmm.. ok- easy may be the wrong word. But I was able to bring my heart rate back down from "off-the-charts" and focus on the strength in my legs. Funny- cause I could have sworn just a few minutes ago that I had noodles coming from my hips- now, nothing but mean peddling machines!! LOL.. Anyway, almost immediately I could see this was going to be where I lost a lot of time. Even though I was working really hard, I kept getting passed by competitors on road bikes. MAN! I didn't have a chance with my mountain bike. I was quite happy to see that it was ONLY road bikes passing me, and no one on a mountain bike (which there were plenty of). This to me is obviously a matter of better equipment and not of better physical fitness. Bike was over in no time.

Run: Ah, the run. This is what I was looking forward to. I through my bike back up on the rack, my helmet down on the ground and I was out of T2 in seconds. Now- remember those noodle legs from T1?? Yeah.. they're back.... I started out of the bike lanes and I'm looking at all the people giving direction and pointing at which way to go, again, thinking.. "there are alot of people to give simple directions around here".. and then I figured out why. As I came out of the bike lanes and into the run exit, I had to turn a corner and get up a tiny little hill to get on course. Well. I saw the corner. And the tiny hill. But when my weight shifted to turn that corner, those noodles pretty much gave way and I used those people giving directions as bumpers to get me back on track. Whooopsies.."SORRY!!" I yelled back with a wave.. and then I was off! Again, the "noodle syndrome" seems to be reserved for transitions only, because once I got on course, I felt great. I got right into my running mode and it didn't take long to get myself on pace. By the time I had my heart rate where I wanted it, I was turning around and heading home. I finished strong, and without major mishap!!! YEY ME!!!!














My goal was to finish in less than an hour and my final time was 53:28. I finished 49th out of 120, and 9th in my age bracket. I'm happy, and soooo excited for the next one- Grimsby August 13th.

Once they post the actual results and times, I'll post them HERE.

Good news on the fundraising front- today I met my August deadline- am at $2,791 officially with still $200 to send in today!

Thanks again to everyone!

S.