What *was* I thinking?

"What was I thinking?" Coursed through my brain at 4AM Sat morning when the alarm went off. After the discovery of a flat tire as I was loading my bike on the bike rack on Friday night and two tire changes later ( worthy of pit crew status of course...OK...totally lying on that one.) due to one of my spares ALSO having a hole in it, I got to bed rather late on Friday. Sat morning's rudely early start got me doubting this whole triathlon thing in general. Really...'what was i thinking??'

OK i will admit it...this thought generally goes through my head at least once on race day. But generally it is reserved for the time right after I have gotten off my bike and I am attempting to run on Jell-o legs and I just feel the burn of the previous discipline course through my quads. So I figured, hey...let's get that comment out of the way early on...and early it was.

And yet another confession if you are already unaware of ...i am not a morning person. I want to be a morning person. But I am not one. Even if I had more than 4.5 hour of sleep on Friday night...hey even if I got 8 hours of sleep on Friday night, Sat's 4am wake up call would have still left me in a delirious stupor. It has to do with the time of day...not the amount of sleep I get.

It was my friend PH's first tri...and our friend KB wanted to come along and cheer us on. While having a cheering section is ALWAYS great...i couldn't help thinking "you want to get up at WHAT time to come WITH us...and stand around and cheer"? Obviously...an awesome friend. Anyway, PH showed at my house at 4:30...we loaded the gear and got on the road. The weather was PERFECT. High of 80...70 at the start, sunny...lovely...wonderful basically.

I've been so busy these days with trying to get done, that i haven't had time to contemplate the whole racing...training...ect. I knew that my endurance base was pathetic. I knew I wasn't super trained for the race...but I think the enthusiasm that PH had for the race was a lot to encourage me to give it a go and just enjoy. Since my training has been less than steller, i had no expectations...and that was really what I needed right now in my life. Trying to finish up before I move has held enough expectations...and recently I think what I needed was something that I enjoyed and could share with others to help put life in general into into perspective a little.

Anyway...we get to the race, set up...get geared up. No issues really. PH is in the first wave...i'm in the 4th or 5th. A lot of standing around and waiting. I realize i'm hungry at this point. It's been almost 4 hours since I ate. Although...maybe those are butterflies and not hunger pangs...:-)

Finally it's my swim start...and we are off. During the swim I make a conscious decision to just be in the race...fully...what ever I am doing. I tend to always think about "what's next" in a race...and hey let's be honest...how often do we just be in whatever activity we are doing in life. So I decided to be fully aware of the day...and just enjoy. Breathe, stroke, breathe, stroke. And finally...i saw the beach. It was actually a really good swim for me as far as my rhythm and sighting and not dropping my hips when I sighted...total time 17:00 for 1/2 a mile . The swim confirmed my LOVE of my new swim goggles.

T1 I managed not to hang out in too long...less than 2 mins. Nice.

The bike was a very undulating course...never really a time without a hill. It was an alright course...some areas a bit rough...I was please to see a final avg speed on my computer of 16.6mph. That's about where I finished up last season in my avg speeds...so to see that in a race that I haven't been in the saddle all that much for...is great...encourages me for when I have more time to devote to training.

T2...quick again.

The run.."i thought there were more aid stations" went through my head half way through mile 1 since there was one supposed to be at the 0.5 mile mark. Oh well..i'll live. The first half was up hill. My watch said...9:20 for the first mile, 10:30 for the second mile...and then 7:45 for the next mile and 4 something for the final .2 miles...looking at those time...mile markers MUST have been misplaced. Granted the 7:45 was on a down hill...but, honestly...no...my effort was not a sub 8mpm...fun to entertain, but more likely a misplaced mile marker. Over all pace from my final time looks like it was 9:40 something...

Final time 1:40: something.

I was pleased. I had no expectations except to have fun...and I did...sure it was definitely not my potential...but neither has my training these days. I wanted my friend PH to have lots of fun...and he did. His comment afterwards was "that was AWESOME"... that was the best part. My friend KB had a great time cheering.

The best part was just to savor the day...savor each discipline as it passed...I got to share a part of my life with good friends that many in my don't get to...and then to watch them find so much joy in it...filled me with joy.

So...what was i thinking?? I was thinking it was going to be an awesome race shared with friends...and it was.