The Pursuit Of Happiness - Entry #65
September 8, 2013
I completed my second triathlon of the season todays. It was the
Nation's Tri, and I did a relay with my cousin, Jared and friend, Emily. Everyone did so amazing today, I could not have asked for a better team. And, it was a ton of fun doing it together - people to cheer for, people cheering for you, and you are done after one event.
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| Race day view in the Nation's capitol. |
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| Team 4876, ready to go - let's do this! |
But I must say the highlight of my race was when I was finishing the swim, and running up the ramp to the relay corral transition. I felt good about my swim, but had no idea how fast I had gone (it was a bit disorienting because I had no idea what the time was when I actually got in the water and there was no clock getting out) or where I compared to everyone else (not that it truly matters because it is all about having fun). As I started running up the swim ramp though, I hear the announcer saying that the first person from the relay wave has finished the swim, and then I hear them describing me. "She is running up in a black two piece suit..." Amazing. "That is me!" I thought. I cannot even describe in words how incredible that felt. I couldn't believe. I had imagined being near the beginning since I am a strong swimmer, but first out?!
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| Game face?! Check :) |
As I continued to jog up, I heard footsteps from behind of someone sprinting to the transition area, and then I hear, "and the first relay finisher has already been passed by the second..." and all i could do was shrug my head, wave my hand, and laugh. I couldn't help but smile. I may not have been the fast swimmer in my wave (it was a time trial start and the sprinter made me aware of that) but I was first out and got my 15 seconds of fame and it felt great!
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Giant transition area, this was probably an eighth of it.
Luckily we were the first/last rack to make it easier to find. |
I reached the relay corral and luckily Emily screamed my name and found me through the mass of people. We had planed a spot to meet but with everyone waiting anxiously it had become a giant mob of confusion. I transferred the timing chip from my leg to hers, grabbed her camera, and she was off. Jared then found me. I dried off a bit and we walked to watch the bike portion. It was a two loop course so I was trying to spot Emily all four times she passed. Jared and I chatted and enjoyed ourselves as we waited. I saw Emily whiz by, marking her first quart, to fast to get a picture, and then we waited and watched some more. I somehow missed her passing at the halfway point and then of course the three quarters marking because I was still waiting for her to loop back. But, the time was moving along so Jared decide to start stretching and head back into the relay corral and wait. Good timing too because less then 20 minutes later Emily was flying to the finish (again too fast for me to capture on her camera). I cheered and tried to run with her. I then ran back to the relay corral to find my team. Her and Jared had already transferred the timing chip, he had re-racked the bike, and was off to run our final leg.
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| Race receipt with our awesome times and finish results :) |
Emily and I grabbed some food as we walked to watch the race at the finish line. We saw Jared coming into finish and were able to get on the course to run through the shoot and finish with him as a team (team Tri Hard, 4876). It was pretty cool. After finishing we grabbed our stuff, went back to the food station for Jared and got our timing receipt. Our final time was 2:44:33. Not bad our first Olympic triathlon, and Emily and Jared's first tri in general. I got a swim tim of 24:32. My goal was to swim under 25 min so I have no complaints there. Emily had an amazing bike time of 1:24:54, and Jared completed the run in a quick 50:55, putting us in 29th place out of the 68 or so coed relay teams. Yay top half! I think we were all quite pleased with our results and had a great day. We made an impressive team, Ironman relay here we come ;)!
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| Cover page photo shoot?! Yea we are famous ;) |
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