seriously hope: Adventures with Thelma: The Season Finale

LKN Triathlon 2014

I swam. I biked. I ran.

I had previously laid out my new strategy I decided to implement for the last tri of my season. Goal #1 was to throw caution to the wind, go all out and leave nothing left and see what happened. Trial by fire so to speak. Goal #2 was to do better than last year.

Mission Accomplished.

With a hectic night before and a later-than-I-wanted bedtime, I was thankfully able to get a good night sleep and woke up ready to go....and hungry! I made a line directly to the kitchen to whip up some vittles. I've made a few changes in my eating habits and have been testing some new things for my pre-race breakfast for Chicago. It seems to be working, at least it has on my last couple of long training runs, but this was the perfect opportunity to test it out in an actual race albeit a short one. After breakfast, loading the car and taking care of my fluffy sons, it was time for me to get my tail in gear and head to the race site down the road.

With plenty of time to set up my transition area and to settle in, I was able to relax and enjoy the atmosphere. I ran into Mr. van Voo on my way to get my timing chip and we headed over to get our numbers marked. After a little chit chat we went about our individual pre-race rituals. Me? I donned on my ear buds to go for a quick and easy warm-up jog. I have to say, THEE most perfect song came up on the shuffle. One that made me close my eyes, shut out the world and let the electricity and energy take over. I just let my legs turn over however they wanted and lost myself in the song. I don't recall ever having a moment quite like that before! Best warm-up EVER. I've been debating on if I should share it as a Song for the Week or not. I dunno...I might be selfish and keep that moment to myself...

Time to head back to transition and make all the final preparations to make the trek to the lake. Cool thing about my transition area? I got to rack next to one of my most favoritest couples EVER! Made for such a fun pre and post-race, not to mention all the photo ops! Mr. van Voo's area was far far away, but he made sure to stop by the fun side of the island for this gem of a pic...

Whole 'lotta trouble right there...

Ready to race!

Making new friends!

Enough of that. Time to get racing!

Swim:

My wave was all women 39 and under. That's a lot of women. And don't let the pink caps fool you....they were brutal! I don't think I've ever had as much contact in the water as I did at that start. Good news, it didn't really phase me. I kept my head down and plowed forward regardless of what was in front of me, swimming over, kicking and hitting as I went. It's okay though...because I apologized to everyone before the horn blew just in case! And if anyone tries to tell you that triathlon is not a contact sport, they clearly have no idea what they are talking about. Now, I don't know if I quite made the lake my bitch, but I did shave a lot of time off from last year. Still, lots of room for improvement, but I knew that going in.

18:39 (last year: 23:03)

T1:

I am not known for my fantastic transition times. But this day, I did run as promised...so fast that I was a blur..... Now, I'm not going to share my T times, because, well, they are embarrassing.

All you need to know that each transition was faster than last year!

Bike:

So, the bike. It felt great! I passed more people than I got passed, so that's good. It's hard to compare to last year though because they changed the course a bit and came up shorter than yesteryear. All I know is I was able to attack the hills like I wanted to, use the downhills to my advantage and concentrated on my efficiency on the flats. I'm good on flats!

58:54 - 17.3mph (last year: 1:03:27 - 16.8mph)

T2:

Angry. Dude next to me decided to use his area AND my area and I had to dig through all his bike crap, shoes included, to get to my stuff. Yes, I threw it ALL. And used some very colorful language as well.

Run:

It didn't beat my stand alone 5K PR, but it might have beat my PR for a 5K in a tri. I don't have much memory of the run, maybe because I was oxygen deprived, but my best memory was seeing a woman in my AG a bit ahead of me, locking her in my sights and methodically reigning her in and passing her well before the finish line. This might have been my best run in a tri to date. The absolute BEST memory? Seeing my peeps when I crested the hill right before the finish! Definitely gave me what I needed to keep pushing through!

25:15 - 8:08 (last year: 27:07)