My First Race Report - Better Late Than Never, Right?

I am a bad bad blogger! In fact, I should probably be shamed from the blogger community - I am sure Shell would agree. She's even given up on nagging me to post something to my blog - she hasn't done that in MONTHS... is that like when you keep turning down invitations to freinds' activities and then they just stop inviting you? Oh well... even if my blogger friends give up on me, I'm going to try to keep blogging stuff cause I am going to make a scrapbook of all of it one of these days and I guarantee I won't remember all the juicey details without having it documented somewhere. :)

Anyway, after all the months of training and working so hard, race day finally came and I was up and at 'em EARLY in the am. After packing and repacking my bag a bazillion times the night before to make sure i had everything, we headed out to Chester Frost.

This is me and Kurt after picking up my timing chip and hitting the body marking station. After all those years as a kid of being told not to write on yourself, who knew it would become cool to let people use Sharpies on you?!

And here is all my stuff set up in transition. I didn't have hardly anything on my towel, lol, cause I didn't have much to change since I am not into all the fancy schmancy gear at this point. Most of the other athletes have way more stuff out there, and it's set up in specific order that you're planning to use it so it'll be that much faster to just grab and go each time you're in transition.

Once all my stuff was set up, I sat around wondering what the heck to do next. Some people didn't put their wetsuits on until the last minute, but with at least 30 minutes before my wave start, I decided to go ahead and slide into mine just so that I'd have something to focus on besides my nerves! That took all of about 3 minutes, so then I just stared off at the water, LOL, and finally decided to go down and get acclimated in the water a bit before the horn went off. I was SO NERVOUS, but amazingly enough, as soon as I heard the sound and started swimming, I felt calm and focused and just put my head down and went.

These are not the most flattering pictures, I know, LOL, but what can I say! It's like saying "Dang she looks rough" about a picture of a woman who just gave birth, lol. It is what it is, folks - there I am in all that black neoprene chubby glory :) Anyway, I came out of the swim with several people still behind me - and I was so freaking excited! It was shortlived however, because there was quite a hike up a big hill to get back to transition, and since I was in no shape to run it, they all quickly overtook me. My wetsuit is a littel too big, since I have to go with a man's suit, so it was easy to peel off and toss on the ground by my bag. I put on my socks and shoes, quickly grabbed my hemet & sunglasses and took off with my bike. My husband and oldest daughter Andria were there right outside transition shearing me on and taking some pictures and it was so awesome to see them there!

The bike was a little scary for me, as right out of transition is a big hill, and man you can really pick up some speed going down it! I get all paranoid of going to fast and wrecking, considering I'm still fairly new at cycling. But I just decided to ride the best I could, including if that meant riding the brakes, LOL! As I crossed out over the main road, I look up and see a silver Honda CRV, and I thought - haha wouldn't that be funny if that was my bff Rena - and then I looked up and it WAS HER! She was headed into the park to cheer for me for a little while. I was so excited I took one hand off the handlebars to wave to her and almost wrecked! LOL! I rode over the rolling hills ok, but the course has a couple of mean wicked hills... and I had to walk those. The comforting thing was that I wasn't the only one. There was a chick in front of me, my rabbit if you will, that I could almost pass on the rolling hills and flat parts, but when we'd both have to walk up the hills, she'd be off again on the downhill... I bet she didn't ride her brakes! Everytime I'd get real close enough to catch her, BAM there's another hill, lol... Just wasn't meant to be. Anyway, I was really excited because I did manage to ride the hill back up to T2, and not everyone did that. I reracked by trusty steed, grabbed my visor, and off I went for the run, feeling on top of the world, because I managed to actually jog out of transition like a rock star! Only to realize that I went out the wrong way, dang it! So I had to go back in, which turned out to be a good thing cause I forgot to grab my race number belt. Got my head screwed back on right and headed out on the run. I jogged for a little while until I was out of sight of most of the onlookers, and had to walk. There were no delusions about being able to run that 5K, and actually there was alot of walking involved. I tried to save the running for when there was a crowd of people, LOL!!!! Ya ain't got nothin' if ya ain't got pride, LOL!!! I was doing ok until a little over half' way through, and I was hurting so bad! I've never been so exhausted and just 100% completely physically and emotionally spent! My 16 year old Bailey was manning the last water stop, and she was ready to run the last mile in with me and keep me going... "Get it moving Mom, C'Mon Mom you can do it, Let's GO Mom!" etc... and I was just in tears from the exhaustion - back was hurting and I just had nothing left. But the sound of her voice convinced me I couldn't stop... had to keep going to get to the finish line just so I could shut her up, LOL!!!! Just Kidding... sort of.... she really saved

me!

So here we are rounding the last curve before the finish line, and there I am jogging across the mat. WOOT WOOOT I finished! I did it I did it!!! My official time was 2:18:02 and I was SO THRILLED! I even won the Athena division... although I have to confess that it's because I had no competition, LOL! But that's ok - it sure was great for the ego boost! Here is my moment of podium pride!

Anyway, I can't even describe to you what an impact this race had on me... I did something I never ever thought I could do, and I learned that I could push through anything with God leading me!

Stay tuned, cause I've done two more races since then, although I'll give your eyeballs a rest before posting aout those, LOL!