My triathlon....

My very good friend Sarah and I completed, yes completed our first Olympic Triathlon. Now for those of you who don't know what this is we swam 1500 meters (almost a mile), bike 24 miles, and run 6.2 miles. Here we are before the race. We got to the race almost 2 hours before it started. There were several waves of racers ahead of us, but we really needed to get in the water for a warm up, so we got to the race early...plus we wanted to get anxious and nervous while waiting to start, you know the fun part of racing. The race was wet suit legal, so we had wet suits on - neither one of them fit us very well, but it was nice because it made you much more buoyant resulting in a better swim...

And we're off....can you tell which one I am? It was pretty crazy. We were running into each other and kicking each other most of the time. I however, kept going off course, instead of swimming in a nice straight line, I swam in an S shape....pretty frustrating, but I ended up finishing and that is what matters, right? I have driven by this lake several times (see that mansion in the background? our friends Jacob and Kelly live in that neighborhood, it backs up to this lake), never thought I would swim in it...I don't like swimming and not knowing what is underneath me, but I will say that keeping myself calm was fairly easy as there were several people in kayaks keeping the swimmers on course - they had their work cut out with me. Our caps were gray and the next wave behind us wore yellow caps, and while I was swimming quite a few yellow caps (started 3 minutes behind us) passed me...needless to say, I need to work on my swimming.

I really wish you could see this picture bigger, I am the swimmer by the big orange buoy....I am almost done, AND BONUS there are swimmers behind me, I wasn't the last one out of the water....thank goodness. Sarah rocked the swim and finished just about 3 1/2 minutes ahead of me.

This girl is a "stripper", her and her friends had the privilege of stripping wet suits off anyone who wanted to have help. I am sure they enjoyed helping the men more than the women.

After swimming, we ran up this hill, then right back down into the transition area where our bikes were waiting for us. We rode a 6 mile loop 4 times. I can't tell you how hard it was. It was really hilly with some pretty good inclines to boot. It is funny because in the last tri we did (July) Sarah and I had the EXACT to the second time on our bikes. This race, we had the EXACT to the minute time on our bikes (Sarah beat me by 5 seconds), clearly we are well matched in the bike. Here I am, not sure what lap this is, but I tried really hard on the bike to keep my average speed above 16, that was my goal and my average was just over 18!!! I was very pleased with that.

Here is Sarah sporting....A SMILE???? not sure I smiled at all in the bike....

Heading into the transition area to put my bike up and get my running shoes on....yeah, my favorite part, the run!

The run was also quite hilly and by the time we started the run, it had to be 90 degrees, doesn't sound too hot, right? well, it was. EVERY water station had nice refreshing water that I pretty much used to pour over myself, a bit shocking, but overall, very refreshing. I caught up to Sarah about halfway into the run. I ran with her for a little bit, then took off, we were almost done. Here I am finishing and so excited to see the kids and the finish line.

Here is Sarah finishing. Also, very happy to see the finish line.

I think we look pretty good for just finishing a pretty long, hard, and hot race, don't you?

Thanks Sarah, for pushing me to do this race. I don't think I would have done it and done it as well as I did without you. You are such an awesome friend and I thank God for you each and every day. I can't wait to do many more races with you....someday :) You did awesome today, I am so proud of both of us...I will be wearing my shirt proudly tomorrow.