Double or nothing

I have the greatest hubby ever!

Chris and I talked about doing the second triathlon after he woke up Saturday afternoon. When I told him how much the entry fee was, he said to do what I needed to do. Sunday morning at the lake, I was supposed to be doing some practice swimming before the tri but the water was too cold. I got about chest deep and refused to do anything else. Chris actually took off his shirt and shoes and jumped into the lake to swim with me. I'm sure the people on the shore thought we were crazy!

We did some swimming together. I felt fine about putting my face in the water and my stroke was smooth. I wasn't loving the dark, greenish water but if I watched the bubbles on my hands I felt just fine. Chris reassured me about the cold weather and I signed up for the Tri-it distance. (The swim is 1/4 mile instead of 1/2 mile, but the bike is still 12 miles and the run a 5k.)

I told myself that Saturday's race was just a warm-up and today was my day. The other people in the Tri-It distance were all really cool and we were chatting waiting for our wave to start. I entered into the start chute feeling good. I swam out to the start line and found a nice place for me at the back of the pack. Unfortunately, as soon as the gun went off, I instantly found putting my face in the water scary. I felt claustrophobic when my head was down and all I could focus on was that I couldn't breath. I tried to freestyle with my head out of the water, but I was just getting splashed in the face. So I flipped over and did the elementary backstroke. I'd do about 10 strokes on my back, then turn over to do a couple of front crawl strokes to sight. It was slow going but at least I was going.

There was some bumping about half way through the swim. A girl swimming next to me seemed to have a hard time sighting, so she was kinda all over the place. At one point she even swam right over the top of me. But I just kept doing my thing. After we turned the last buoy, I was doing more and more front crawl. I think I could smell the barn doors and just wanted to get out of the water as quickly as possible lol I stood up a little earlier than I should have, but I was just so relieved to be on land again that I didn't care about wasting the extra couple of seconds running instead of swimming.

T1 went well and I was off on the bike. I love to bike! So much faster than running and it makes me feel like a kid again :) The ride was pretty uneventful, which is so awesome! I forgot my bike's fanny pack with the flat tire repair kit and I swear I rode through every bit of broken glass on Marine Drive lol I did get a little bit of chub rub on my thigh from the seat, so lots more Body Glide next time. Before I knew it, we hit the turn around by PDX and were back to Blue Lake park. I was too nervous to try the trick of leaving my shoes on the bike and coming into T2 barefoot. Maybe next time.

The 5k went well. I hadn't eaten much because my ShotBloks were tasting like wax :P I was a little slower than I wanted to be, but I was in a nice groove by the end of the run.

Swim - 0:14:42

T1- 3:23

Bike - 0:50:17

T2 - 2:11

Run - 0:32:34

Total - 1:43:07

The only cruddy thing about the Sunday's race - I actually got an age group award! I was thrilled with just finishing and I've only gotten one other AG award ever before (and this was the 40th race I've finished), I didn't even bother checking the results before we left yesterday. When I checked my times this morning, I took 4th place in the Tri-It women's overall and 2nd in my age group. So even though I placed, I didn't get my award :( But I can't be too disappointed - going from a DNF to 4th overall is a nice way to end the weekend.

Yesterday I wanted to get into the pool to see what was going on with putting my face in the water. Without hesitation I was able to push off from the wall and start stroking away. No scary feelings about having my face down. Now I'm wondering if maybe I was holding my breath during the races. Hmmmm. My legs were pretty tired yesterday, so I just did a bunch of swimming with the pull-buoy focusing on zipper drills and bilateral breathing. Felt really good.

Another reason why my hubby is crazy awesome - I was feeling really bad about I how I looked in my swimsuit. There were chicks at the races who looked like they just finished a game of beach volleyball. Tanned, washboard stomaches, cute little tattoos, sporty bikinis, ect. Blah. When I started complaining about them yesterday, Chris hadn't even noticed them. He had been too busy looking at all the different wetsuits people were wearing so he'd know which kind I should buy lol