The Tri As A Metaphor For Life

in which Kristen has a rough time at first, hits her stride near the middle, and spends the last part trying to overcome her own self-doubt and finish strong.

For serious.

So, I'm just going to say it: I LOVE TRIATHLON! What a seriously kick-ass weekend. I caught a ride up to Show Low with J & L on Friday morning and we got all settled in at the hotel and headed right up to the lake for a little group swim with the rest of our Team. Well, the lightning and rain put the kibosh on that plan, so we stood in line (in the rain) to pick up our race packets and then headed back into town.

That night was our Pasta Party, where we watched a slide show of our months of training and listened to M talk about her cousin's battle with Leukemia and her reasons for running the race in the morning. Not a dry eye in the place. It was really fun seeing the contrast between the Pasta Party at the Nike Marathon last year (8,000 people in an enormous conference center) and our little gathering of 60 or so this year. My Teammates were so freaking awesome this season - the Holiday Inn Express conference room in Show Low, AZ wins hands down.

The Deuces Wild Triathlon took place at Fools Hollow Lake (and the surrounding area) on Saturday, May 30th. The weather was perfect and the water was FREEZING! Sixty two degrees, people. Ugh. It literally takes your breath away and sends your heart racing. Not a good condition to be in when the start rolls around.

That was a ROUGH swim, you guys. I just could not catch my breath. I was never tired, I never felt like "oh, I can't move my arms and legs," I just could. not. breathe. Little, shallow, rapid breaths are not conducive to swimming for any length of time. Looking back, I probably should have just grabbed on to one of the kayaks and chilled until I could relax a bit, but I had it in my head that I had to KEEP MOVING FORWARD JUST DO IT DON'T STOP. So I did a lot of side stroke, a little back stroke, some freestyle and slooooooowly made my way around the lake. It was not awesome. But! Weeks ago, I said my goal was to finish the swim and not be last - there were about 5 people in the water behind me once I reached the Swim In area. And as the guy on the big yellow kayak said, "Hey, at least you're not last!" So, mission accomplished, I guess.

I stumbled on over to the wet suit strippers, fumbling with my velcro tabs the whole way - being in that really cold water for so long really messed with my coordination. I managed to get the wet suit down to my waist, sat down on the mat as instructed, two people each grabbed a side of my suit and ZZZZIP! stripped it right off. They handed it back to me and I made the barefoot, uphill run back to my transition area.

This point in the race is known as T1 and is one of the splits that gets timed (it goes Swim, T1, Bike, T2, Run). Really good triathletes can get their transition times down to less than a minute. Needless to say, mine was a bit longer than that. But I got from the lake to my area, got my helmet, socks, bike shoes, gloves, sunglasses, race belt, and watch on, my bike un-racked and ran over to the mount line in just over 4 minutes. I was ok with that.

The bike started out a little iffy. I was still so cold and exhausted from my swim that it was hard to get into my ususal cycling cadence. But I warmed up and calmed down and got into the swing of things around mile 10. I managed to pass quite a few people on the ride and hit mile 13 or so feeling good. Then I turned onto the highway. Then I saw the hill. The massive, massive hill. And I said "oh shit." And I put my head down and just started going. I'd count fifty pedal revolutions and then look up to see how much progress I'd made. Then I'd put my head down and count fifty more. And so on. And I finally made it to the top of that hill and looked out before me...at the next huge hill. "Whimper." Head down. Fifty revs. Look up. Head down. Fifty revs. You get the picture. The ride ended up taking me about 20 minutes longer than I would have liked...but it could have been way worse. And I did not get a flat. Hallelujah.

I hit the dismount line and took off running for T2. This transition was much quicker: I just re-racked my bike, switched shoes (hooray for speed laces), swapped my helmet for a hat and took off running. Or as close to running as I could get with my screaming quads.

I spent the next 6 miles running as much as I could muster. The scenery was pretty great, and part of the run was on a dirt path right next to the lake. There was a guy dressed up like a pimp (purple hat and everything) handing out Gatorade at mile 2 and a little farm with some Shetland ponies around mile 4. I managed to pass a number of other people on the run and actually caught up to two of my teammates near the end. The three of us sprinted on in to the finish line together. What a great way to end!

My sister was there, and my parents flew in from Nebraska for the race (they're the BEST. Seriously.) and a friend of mine from Phoenix left at 4:30 that morning to make the 3 hour drive to Show Low so she'd be there in time for the 8am start. I'm so lucky. :)

That night we had our victory party. Every person on my Team crossed that finish line, even the four who raced the Half Ironman distance. And combined, my team raised almost $60,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Thank you so much to everyone out there who supported me - whether it was encouragement or donations or prayers or whatever. You have no idea how much it means to me.

And, miracle of miracles, I woke up the next day and... I wasn't even sore. Except for my wicked sunburn, which was ON FIRE. All that freakin' training paid off like magic. And now I know that a wetsuit will rub the carefully applied SPF 75 sunscreen right off you. Note to self: reapply sunscreen in T1.And now, up next: the Dublin Marathon. :)