My First Triathlon (November 2008)

I know most of you already know this, but this past November I ran a "Beginner" triathlon in St. George. I wanted a goal to work toward to get in shape. Otherwise, it's hard to get out of bed and run (or bike or swim) - especially now that it's cold outside. Anyway, I actually enjoyed training for it and I got really excited to do an athletic event again (I miss High School Sports!) I was pretty nervous before it started - you can ask poor Ryan who had to hear all about it and listen to me agonize about it - but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (probably because it was only a beginner's distance).Here's me before the race started. Zach says he can see the nervousness in my eyes!

Now I'll take you through the race from the bystander's point of view (thanks for taking the pics Ryan!) This is me in line waiting to start the race. I met a great lady (Tracy in the blue) from the Salt Lake area that I got to know and I'll look for this Spring.


Here is me swimming and "gasping" for air!

In this shot I'm in my first transition from the swim to the bike. It was only in the upper 40's when we started the race, so that's why I'm wearing all the clothes. While it made for a comfortable race after the swim, it made me take way too long in the transition area. I took over 3 minutes and if I would have cut off two, I could have almost won the beginning distance for women!


Now I'm taking my bike up the path for the 5 mile ride...

Ryan and I had gone to check in and view the course the night before the race. Although it was dark, I made him drive the bike course so I would know what to expect. I was scared to death because there were a lot of hills and I hadn't practiced any at all (where do you have hills in Vegas?!) It ended up not being as bad as I had anticipated, thank goodness! Here I come down into the parking lot after my bike ride.


The run was the last part and I have to admit that I thought it wouldn't be too bad because I've done a lot of running to practice (or so I thought...) I guess it's a lot different when you don't have to swim 200 meters and ride 5 miles on a bike BEFORE doing that run. Anyway, here I come down one of the last hills into the home stretch. What a great feeling it was to run that last 100 meters knowing I was almost done (especially compared to the first 100 meters knowing I had a mile and a half still to run!)

Overall, it was a great experience for me. As for results, here goes:

In the Beginner Distance I placed 20th out of about 68 runners total (men, women and teenagers).
I placed 8th out of all of the women (all ages and I'm not sure how many - I didn't want to keep on counting).
In my age group I placed 3rd (men and women - about 10 total)
In my age group of females I placed 1st! (about 3 or 4 total)

I was about 8 minutes off the fastest time (a male) and about 2 minutes off the fastest female. I'm sure the results will be quite different when I try it again in April as I'll be going twice the distance...