Iron Girl Triathlon Details

First of all, THANK YOU! Thank you to everyone who donated to The Leukemia and Lymphoma society and helped me reach my goal of $1400. The final amount raised was $1577!!!! Maybe one day we will find a cure for Leukemia, which is the #1 disease killer of children. Also, Thank you to everyone who congratulated me, supported me, cheered me on, and helped me to keep going. I could not have done this with out my amazing family and friends. I truly feel blessed to be able to do something like this and I feel inspired, motivated and accomplished.

It was a great day. I woke up at 4:30 because I wanted to get to Columbia by 5:30ish. There was a little bit of traffic coming in but not too bad of a drive. When I got there, I found some TNT friends, set up my transition area and pumped up my bike tires. Right before the race, a huge storm came in with a torrential downpour of rain so the race was postponed a few minutes. 

The race start is broken up in to swim waves of different age groups starting with the pro-athletes and then the oldest to youngest so I had a while to wait around until it was my time. I wasn't nervous for the swim at all. This is my element! I wanted to make sure I got out in front so that I wasn't slowed down by the huge crowd of swimmers. Unfortunately, right after the race started my time chip fell off my ankle and I stopped to see if I could find it. I ended up getting swam over by a few people and wasted some time so I just kept swimming. When I got out of the water, I got a new time chip and ran to transition. I was very out of breath (something I was not expecting to be after getting out of the water) but I felt like my transition went smooth and was fairly short. 

The bike was the part I was most nervous apart. I had this huge fear of getting a flat tire half way out on the course and being stuck not knowing what to do. I was thankful for all the support personnel that were out on the roads helping people with mechanical malfunctions. This definitely calmed my nerves. 

Columbia has what everyone likes to call "rolling hills" because the whole entire course is UP a hill.. DOWN a hill... up another hill... down another hill... so the up hills suck but the down hills feel great. There are about 5 HUGE and I mean steep/long hills on the course. I was not looking forward to any of them but I am very proud of myself for biking up all the hills and not walking at all! After the second big hill I stopped at the top because I was having an asthma attack. I am glad I took my inhaler. A few puffs and some water later I was back on the road. I stopped again at the turn around point to grab some gatorade. By that point I was so hungry it felt like my stomach was eating itself. My very favorite part of the race was the last 2 miles of the bike.. HOME STRETCH!! It felt so good to be going up and down those mini rolling hills. I kept thinking to myself... "I can finish this now! I will finish this triathlon! WOO HOOO!" It was a lot of fun.

Coming into transition #2 I was still on my "just finished the bike" high.... and then there was the run... ugh! The dreaded run. I can't lie. I didn't run the whole thing. I ran a lot of it..not all of it. But you know what... I finished it and that's all that mattered to me. 

I sprinted the last few yards to the finish. OH it was the mentally the best feeling in the world. (physically one of the worst that I have experienced in a while)...still, I would highly recommend it to anyone. It was emotional crossing the finish line but so so so much fun! I can't wait to do another tri. I still really want to do Nations (The olympic distance triathlon that I was originally signed up to do but dropped out after feeling overwhelmed). Next year I might even do both Iron Girl and Nations! 

I was a little bit disappointed when checking the official time. Because my time chip fell off in the water, they have my time as being 3 hours 4 mins. This was definitely not my time. Dad's unofficial time for me was 2 hours 33 mins. I should have been 33rd in my age group, instead it says I am 40th.. Unfortunately, that will never be the official time and that is somewhat disappointing to me. Now I have something to beat for next year! 

It was bittersweet saying good bye to all my TNT friends that I trained with over the past 3 months. I had a lot of fun and will never forget all the wonderful and inspirational women I have met. I am happy I can cross this off the list of things to do before I die, happy that I finished and happy that I raised money for such a great cause. I have rediscovered myself in a whole new way and I now have the confidence that I can do anything I want with some hard practice and a lot of support from family and friends.

-Until Next Time www