Pleasant Prairie

Today I competed in the Pleasant Prairie Triathlon.  We had some Tri Smart people going up.  I went up Thursday to pick up packets for myself and a few friends.  To start today, I got up at 2:15 AM. Now those of you that know me well, know I am an early riser, but even that is early for me.  I was like what the hell am I thinking.  I left my house about 2:45 to meet BFF (Jim) at the Lifetime in Burr Ridge.  We drove up together and chatted about what we wanted to do in the race.  We got there and were able to park near our friends, Bernie and MJ.  BFF and I were competing in the sprint, MJ, Bernie, Forest, Brian, and Liz were competing in the Olympic Distance.  While we were all sitting in transition the announcer stated that the bike portion of the Olympic was short because there was construction.  I wasn't doing the Olympic distance, but that sucks.  At 5:45 we took a group shot and did our last minute stuff before having to leave transition.

The Olympic Distance waves went first.  BFF, Forest and I sat around for a little bit and then Bernie and MJ joined us.  We made some jokes that triathletes make amongst each other. Then Forest's wave took off followed by Bernie and then MJ.  Now for whatever reason, I had it in my head that my wave took off at 7:21.  I was looking for other women with purple caps and they weren't anywhere to be seen. Finally one girl came by me. I was like umm, aren't we suppose to go at 7:21, she said no, we were the last wave.  Last wave again, okay fine.  I wished BFF one final good luck before he took off. Then it was my turn, I put myself in the front with my group.  We took off and I start catching some of the guys from the wave in front of me (white caps), then a few from the wave in front of them (black caps), then some ladies from the wave in front of the black caps. I was like, okay, I'm swimming well, despite that I have only swam once in the last 2 weeks.  I was little warm in my wetsuit, but that was okay, it wasn't that bad. Out of the swim and into transition. I felt like I was in there for ever.

I finally got out to the bike course.  After the first hill, which was shortly out of transition, I felt my legs starting to turn and thought, this is going to be a pretty good bike.  I just concentrated on staying strong and focusing on the person or people in front of me.  There were a few turns that I slowed down because I was like oh sharp turn.  Towards the last 3 miles Bernie caught me. He was on loop 2 for the Olympic Distance. It was nice to hear a familiar voice.  As I was making my way back to transition, there was a section where the Olympic Distance athletes had to make a U-turn to go on the second loop. Well, that was a bad spot. Two bikers collided right there. I was like Oh my god. They both fell hard, but both got up with road rash and carried on.  Awesome.  Off the bike and into transition I got my running shoes on and then put my hat on as I was on the way out.

 I started off on the run and just kept concentrating on my form.  Prior to leaving for my yoga training my read end started to bother me. After looking at my shoes, I discovered I needed new shoes and took care of that before I left for training. I do not start my watch in races because then I am constantly looking at it.  Basically I just kept trying to get the people in front of me. The run does a lot of out and backs on the Olympic course. Needless at our turnaround I was happy to be going the opposite way.  So okay, just a little over a mile to go, lets see what I have left in the tank.  Normally this is a bad idea for me, but today I did alright and did not throw up at the finish (sorry that I disappointed you Bernie, I will try not to disappoint you in my future races).  After I finished I went back to find BFF and we cheered on the others as they came in.

We had a great showing by Tri Smart. BFF was 2nd in his age group, MJ was 2nd in her age group, Bernie won his age group, and I was 3rd in my age group.  Overall I was happy with my race, I would have liked a faster time on my run, but that is okay, there are plenty more races this season.  WAY TO GO TRI SMART!!!!!!!!