Miracle on Lake Minneola or triathlon #2

Let me start out by saying I know Heavenly Father loves me. Some people know this because they prayed about it, some people have had incredibly spiritual experiences in the temple, some have even had dreams or heard voices to confirm this fact. I know this fact because of what transpired in the swim portion of the triathlon on Saturday. And the story goes like this..

I was all ready to go, totally stretched out, feeling good, waiting on the shore, eyeing the buoys and ready to tear it up. This time I heard the horn, ran into the water and was confident. Then about a minute later I feel that the time chip that is velcroed around my ankle is coming off. This is the timer for the entire race, without this you might as well have stayed in bed because you get credit for NOTHING. (Plus, I think I would have to pay $50 or something to replace it.) I started to panic and try to fix it only to realize that I was already out to deep to stand. So now I was trying to raise my leg, tread water with one arm and put the thing back on with my other hand all at the same time. I thought I had fixed it and then began to swim again. Then I felt it fall off. I had a total heart attack and then by some absolute MIRACLE, I caught it between the toes on both of my feet. I dove down to grab it, sucking in a ton of water from all the other people splashing me at the same time, yet somehow got my act together and swam the rest of the way with it in my hand. It was AMAZING. I still can't believe that happened. I don't know what I would have done if I had lost that thing in the water. Unbelievable! Needless to say that the swim portion did not go as I planned, however, my time was faster than last time by about 20 seconds. Is that crazy? Yes, it is! (And see? Heavenly Father loves me because my time chip was important to him too. :)




Anyway, I did better on my time in transition 1 by 30 seconds (just as planned) and that was depsite putting my helmet on before my running shirt. Duh. But my shoes were untied this time! Boo-yah!

The bike part was fun. If I ever do a relay for one of these races, I am the biker, for sure. I feel totally comfortable on the bike and I don't have giant quad muscles for nothing, people. It was actually not as bad as I remembered it being and going up the giant hill at the end I realized that my bike has one gear lower than I had realized. Bonus! My time on the bike was actually 40 seconds slower, but it still felt good and I know on the last one I can get faster.

So it was down to the run. I always feel as if I have nothing left in the tank by this point and I can't feel my legs, which helps nothing. And seeing as how my 'stride' is about 5 inches long, I get passed left and right by those on my age group. But, my overall time for the run was a minute and half faster! Yes, you read that correctly. I did improve my time :) Yay! I still need to focus on sprint training, which is my goal for the week I spend at the hotel out in Utah. They have a treadmill there and I intend to use it!




Sisterhood of the Traveling Spandex Pants


I love that this picture makes me look like I have a second set of giant muscular arms of triumph, yet those belong to the guy eating my dust, I mean, the guy behind me.


My good friend Davina, who I am sure drank 3 Red Bulls before the run. Seriously, she is not human to have run the 5K in 24 minutes. Smokin'!


We're smiling because it's over :)

So here is the breakdown:

SWIM 8:06
SWIM TO BIKE TRANSITION: 3:03
BIKE: 29:07
BIKE TO RUN TRANSITION: 0:52
RUN: 27:58
FINISH 1:09:04
PREVIOUS FINISH: 1:12:57

So that makes me faster by almost 4 minutes! Too bad some more really good people decided to show up this time and put me in 7th place :( But if I can just finally get a good swim and fine tune my run, I know I can do 1:05. I got 34 days. Let the countdown begin!!!!