I did a HARD thing! My first triathlon experience

Well, my friends--I DID IT!! I finished my first triathlon. Oh, I wasn't speedy by any means, but that wasn't my goal. My goal was to finish, and finish I did, so I'm counting the experience as a complete success!

The night before the race was rough. I felt mentally and physically prepared as I could be so I didn't think I would be nervous, but apparently my subconscious never got that memo. My insomnia picked a lousy time to again rear its ugly head and I spent hours tossing and turning, getting more and more stressed and finally just plain angry. I was so darn mad that I'd spent literally MONTHS preparing for this race, and then I was sure it was all going to be ruined by the fact that I simply couldn't fall asleep!

Thankfully I finally fell into a fitful sleep, although I studiously avoided looking at the clock (Insomnia 101) so I have no idea what time it was. I got up at 5:45 a.m. and again although I was all ready to go, my body betrayed me. I couldn't eat a thing and was literally sick to my stomach out of sheer nerves. I left the house around 6:15 a.m. and headed up to the reservoir to meet my friends.

I'm so very thankful that my friends and I did this race together, because once I met up with them I calmed down considerably! I was still anxious, but at least by that time I was able to eat some food without the threat of seeing it again shortly.

We got ourselves all set up and then it was time to get into our wetsuits and prepare to swim in the COLD water.

The water temperature was 66 degrees. The air temperature was right around the same number, but let me assure you that even in a wetsuit, that is pretty darn chilly.

The swim portion of the race is 750 meters, which is 1/2 mile. I've done that distance many times in the pool and even in this same reservoir, but for some reason it seemed longer on race day. The swim course is a triangle--you go into the water on one end of the beach, swim out and around a big round yellowish buoy, then back to the other end of the beach. The first leg of the swim was extra hard because we were headed right smack into the newly-risen sun. That meant every time I lifted my head out of the water to sight the buoy and make sure I was headed the right direction, I was blinded by the sun and its reflection off the water. The big round yellow buoy and the big round yellow sun hanging right directly above it were difficult to distinguish in those conditions and I'm sure that cost me some time and some focus. The second leg of the swim heading the other direction was much easier. I was happy to find out that my swim time was faster than my normal training time in the pool!

The next event of the race is the 12-mile (20K) bike course. I had ridden the course the week prior so I knew what to expect. I had a minor technical problem with my bike's gears on about the last 2 miles causing me to have to push harder than I would have liked, but I'm just thankful it didn't happen earlier when I was going up and down the big hills! I didn't time myself last week so I'm not sure how my race time compared, but I felt like I was going faster on race day so I'm sure I improved.

The final leg of the race is the 5K run (ours was technically a 3.5 mile course rather than a 3.2). This was the event I was most worried about because although I've been running a 5K an average of once a week for months now, it just has not been getting any easier for me, and that's without doing a swim and a bike first! The course was very hilly. They were small hills, but it was pretty constantly up and down without much flat in between. I've had to do all of my training in the gym on a treadmill because they offer babysitting, and it's impossible to replicate that hilly course on a treadmill. I wish I'd prepared by running the run course ahead of time like I did for the bike course.

Normally my pattern is to run 5 minutes, then walk for 1 all through the distance. Because I'm a wimp and can't run up hills, my pattern went completely out the window and instead turned to walk up, run down. I felt like I did much more walking than running and thought that for sure I had completely blown my time, but in reality I was only 3 minutes slower than when I do all of that running!

Coming into the finish line was such a great feeling! My sweet little kids met me and ran in with me, my dear husband took pictures and cheered, and many of our friends were there cheering for me as well. I feel so proud that I was able to set a goal and accomplish it! The training took a long time and does not come easily to me, but I wanted to prove to myself that I CAN DO HARD THINGS--and I did!

And if you made it this far, I want to share one more thing: this song was sort of my theme song for my whole race and training. I wasn't able to wear an iPod during my race so I had to just sing it in my head. ;) Please watch and listen--I think it's so inspiring! Makes me a little teary-eyed every time.