My First TRI

Well, I sucessfully completed my very first triathlon on Sunday! I would have never guessed that I'd have this much fun doing an event, especially after the week I had before.
Summertime and everything that goes with it was starting to catch up with me. After missing a couple workouts with an out-of-town wedding, hosting visiting family staying with us, entertaining my kids, and my leg flarring up with IT band pain....I was a little stressed. But everyone at TFP is so awesome and supportive. Everyone assured me I was sooo ready. With the whole bum leg thing, I thought I was going to suck and not be able to run. I was really caught up in what kind of times I wanted to finish at. I had a talk with Steve F. (an awesome TFPer) about this and he brought it down for me. He asked if I was going to do my best, and I'm like - of course I am, but my leg hurts. And he said, how can you suck if your doing your best? So your leg hurts, you're still doing the best you can. So, I let go of the time thing and focused on just doing it well.

Coach Matt had me so prepared for race day. I had my zone numbers down for the race and a good pep talk, I was ready to go. Sunday I got up and had my little english muffin with my stomach in knots. My husband was awesome talking me through everything I'd do when I got there. He dropped me off as close as he could to the event and I had to walk 20 min. to get there. I was cursing myself for racking my bike the day before as a saw tons of ladies fly by on their bikes. The walk was not so good for my sore leg/hip thing. I got there and set up my necessities and then frantically looked around for another necessity...bathrooms! You can imagine the lines at an all women's event. Completely insane! I remebered a little bathroom by a park across the street where my kids played the day before. I booked over there and didn't even have to wait in line. Sweet! Now I was ready to go.

At the swim start I ran into my TFP TRI 1 buddies and other people I knew which was cool. Did the essential swim warm up that Coach taught me, which is hard to do, but so important. Then it was time to go. I was in the 14th wave. Coach Matt wanted me to line up front right, and I tried as nicely as I could to squeeze my way to the front. Then it was game on. The swim start was a little frantic, two ladies swam over me and there were swim noodles everywhere. I tried quickly to get out from everything, then all the sudden it was quiet. I thought I was doing my usual - swimming in the wrong direction, but I sighted quickly and I was fine. I tried to draft someone in front of me and she seemed to freak when I accidently hit her feet. I sighted another time and got elbowed in the side of the head. The girl said - oh I'm so sorry! and I said - oh, it's ok! Pretty sure that doesn't happen in men's races:)

Next it was on to the bike. The transition went really well. Somehow I easily found my bike, got through the crowd and went for it. As I was riding I noticed people were going really fast or pretty slow. It was a big event with all levels. At one point I felt myself slowing down, riding with everyone, then a girl flew by me and woke me up. I thought what am I doing - go! I caught up and passed her up the hill (thank you compu-trainer classes), then she passed me, then I passed her up another hill and we ended up pushing eachother faster the whole way. I completed my fancy triathlete dismount without running into anyone and rushed to get ready for the run. The girl I was riding with ended up racking her bike right by mine - and were both like - hey! that was a great pace - thanks! So cool.

Wasn't sure how my leg and hip were going to hold up for the run but didn't even have time to worry about it. Everything's on auto-pilot, adrenaline is pumping like mad and I was somewhat numb from the bike ride anyway, so off I went. I ran the best I could and kept my heart rate hovering in top zone 4. Not an easy thing to do, but was so glad I've had my butt dragged up to that level in training. I felt mentally sound - no nerves and then by mile 2 I started getting pretty excited about everything thinking - hey, I'm going to finish a triathlon today! Then I looked up and saw Coach Matt smiling like - see you can do it! It was great to see my husband and kids, parents and friends and TFPer's cheering me on at the finish line.
I completed the race knowing what to do and being so well trained. I didn't want to get to the end and think - well, I could have pushed harder, I could have gone faster. I did my best! And in doing my best I came out with pretty good times. I finished in 1:22:38 and placed 24th out of 317 in my age group and 137th out of 2544. Next up....the Olympic!

Only a couple more weeks until my first tri. Doing the Trek sprint on July 12 at Pleasant Prairie and I'm feeling pretty much ready to go, but nervous. I watched my husband and fellow TFPer's compete in the Verona Tri. It was cool to take it all in, see the transitions and everything come together. It was the first time I watched one and actually thought - hey, I think I could do that!

Coach Matt retested me for a bike and run EMR and a RMR. Found I've changed my cardiovascular system. My zone #'s were adjusted as my body is now getting more output at a lower heart rate #. Still need to keep working all the zones which isn't always easy. Especially going slow.

My RMR showed that I now burn less calories at rest - which I intially got upset about. Coach put it in perspective - I now weigh less than I used to and makes sense that I don't need as many calories.

I've lost a total of 13lbs. so far and I've totally changed my body. I'm 2lbs. shy of my ultimate dream weight. Another exciting perk to all this training! My body fat is now 17%, would like it to be 15 or 16% but it's pretty darn close. I've lost a total of 8 inches off my measurements, so wearing a bathing suit this summer has been painless. This past weekend I was in my friend's wedding. Besides the wedding being a total blast, it was the first time in years that I didn't have to wear some sort of major gut-sucker armor under my dress. Talk about freedom! It's a lot of fun enjoy the results so far. Now it's back to business and getting mentally prepared for the races. Coach Matt said I should expect some puke - zone workouts coming up, YIKES!