On the Saturday I went and picked up my race packet. Lots of fun, but surprisingly small in comparison to some of the running race packet pickup events we have been to this year. It was in a hotel meeting room. I also had to go rack my bike in the transition area. I rode my bike from home, racked it up (and checked out all the competition). I also discovered that the transition area was organized by Sprint and Olympic distances, and then age inside each race distance. I was in the second to last row......what does this say about the average age of triathletes?
Sunday morning came around waaaaaay to early. The race didn't start until 6:30, but they closed the transition area at 6:15 - which meant that if I wanted to get my gear inside I wanted to get there sometime between 5:50 and 6:00. I think I woke up at 4:00. That was the first, and possibly the hardest part of the whole event. Here I am all geared up about to go out the door. I give Amy a huge "thank you" for getting up so early to drop me off.
So I had planed ahead and ordered a triathlon wetsuit to wear in the Potomac. I was excited about wearing the suit because I had read how much faster you can swim in one, but I was much more excited to wear the suit because I wanted as many layers between me and whatever was floating in the Potomac. The problem was that the water temperature the morning of the race was 82 degrees - well above the cut off for wearing a wetsuit. I was forced to swim without it. I could have worn my tri jersey, but the college swimmer in me just couldn't think about swimming with all that drag.
As I was lining up in the starting corral I noticed some people setting up this handy tent......if your saying to yourself, "thats nice, it is a cooling tent so people don't overheat." you would be very wrong. It is actually a hazmat tent so when you exit the Potomac you get sprayed down in a poor attempt to wash off any diseases that may have latched onto you as you swam. I almost put on the wetsuit at this point even if it meant getting disqualified......
The swim start was fun. When they called your heat you ran down a dock and jumped in. Everyone had to tread water for a bit until the race stated - then it was everyone for themselves. Kicking, biting, it all seemed fine in the name of swimming fast. before the start I tried to get towards the front of the group, so I think I did a pretty good job of moving ahead of most of the craziness, but I still got kicked (and kicked a few people myself.)
So here is a pretty go view from near the start line to the Memorial bridge I had to swim under. The turn around point was just on the other side. As I was treading water and looking down the course I have to say that I had a bit of trepidation. It looks kinda far. This also might be a good time to mention that I didn't really train for this race. I did some swimming (maybe 5 times in 4 months) and I ran some with Amy, but I can't really call what I did training. This wasn't helping my confidence much I I looked out over the swimming course. My plan for the race hinged on not going too fast during the swim. I get a bit competitive when I swim and if I tried to have the fastest swim time of the day there wasn't going to be any gas in the tank when it got time to run.
I made it out of the water in good form and not having swallowed too much water from the river. I got a bit lost at the turn around point because I couldn't see the buoy with the rising sun in my eyes. I got chased back on course by some friendly firefighters on a fire boat.
My first transition went well. It wasn't the fastest transition time (mostly due to my fear of getting sun burned and taking time to put on sun block) but I was soon off and riding.
One of the best things about the bike portion of the race was that it twisted and turn back over itself so it was really easy for Amy to be out on the course and cheer for me. She did such a wonderful job - it always made me feel like I rockstar when she would cheer for me. Maybe I'm a bit bias, but she was clearly the best cheerer on the course. She had made all these different signs for me. She would pop up on the course, raise some funny sign in the air and start cheering for me as I rode by. It was a great motivator!
I finished the bike and was feeling pretty good. I had been trying to not push myself on this first triathlon and I went into the run feeling good. As Amy shot this photo of me exiting the transition area she was yelling at me to slow down. Apparently I was sprinting......... 
So I made it about 0.5 miles at that pace, and when Amy took this picture I was starting to feel my legs getting tired. This was also the point when the heat started to get to me. I love cold weather - I wilt when it gets too hot. Running in hot weather is really not my thing. So by the time I started running it was well into the 80's and quickly approaching 90. 
Amy snapped this picture at about mile 5. It should have been a great shot with the Capitol in the background. Something that could have been on the cover of a magazine - the problem was that I was sooooo hot and tired by this point that I was walking. I don't know who designed this race course, but there was a serious flaw. After this photo was taken I ran across the front of the Capitol, turned around, ran back and could see the finish line - then bam! the course took a crazy turn and you had to run up Capitol Hill. I was so tired and hot at this point. I really need to send an email to the race directors about this fun little part of the race.
So after the long plod up Capitol Hill and turned around and made the final push towards the finish line. The whole experience was a great one, and I will defiantly be doing another one again, although I think I need to find one in a cooler part of the country or sometime in the Fall. The biggest lesson is that I think the next one I do, I will actually put some training time in and set my goals more on going fast than just finishing it.So in the final tally here are my times. Not a bad first triathlon I think.....
| Swim | T1 | Bike | T2 | Run |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28:26 | 5:05 | 1:18:04 | 5:18 | 1:03:20 |
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