4:15 AM came a little too quickly for my liking this morning. After a night spent mostly dreading the looming morning swim I woke up more nervous than I've been in a long time. I went with a rice flour waffle with honey, a handful of cherries, and black Irish breakfast tea for breakfast. After I arrived precariously close to the closing of transition and set up T1 & T2 I broke out my vanilla Honey Stinger Waffle for a snack. Stinger Waffles are my new favorite work out food, I highly recommend them!
I made my way down to the water and swam around in an attempt to calm my nerves. It wasn't really working too well but I had a decent warm up anyways. Shortly after I found myself standing at the edge of the water listening to the National Anthem and watching the first wave start. I found a fellow triathlete to talk to and calmed down a bit. Before I knew it I was trudging into the water to begin the swim. I thought it sort of looked long but maybe my nerves were just playing tricks with me. As the swim started so did the panic. I made it to the first buoy without too much trouble, half walking half swimming. By the second buoy I was getting kicked and swam over, smacked repeatedly, splashed in the face every time I breathed, it was basically a cluster F#@%. I managed to round the far buoy and make the first right ok, I got a few strokes in here and there and then inevitably someone would use my chest to kick off of or throw their arm over my back and push me under. So I finally had to make the decision to swim to a kayak and re coop. Once I got there I took a minute to catch my breath and let the more aggressive swimmers go by. Finally I returned to the underwater wrestling match and almost got shoved under the next buoy but at least it was the final right turn for home. The rest of the swim I zigzaged my way back to the beach and finally pulled my sorry self out of the water 17 minutes 12 seconds after starting...
The run back to transition was rough, running on asphalt sucks and having your calf muscles cramp up the whole time doesn't help. I had a little trouble with my socks but I got ready pretty fast and as soon as I jumped on my bike I clipped in and took off. I have to learn to be a little more aggressive and ride around the women who are not really racing because I waited a while before blowing by them. I was loving the bike portion and making pretty good time until somewhere around mile 8 a yellow jacket flew into my left arm, lodged himself into my shoulder and I had to flick him off after he stung me. Like I really needed that. I had a few choice words and then was forced to grit my teeth through the rest of the bike course while the stinging sensation slowly turned into a throbbing pain in addition to the stinging. Fun.
Back at transition I flew through racking my bike and switching to my running sneakers. As I took off for the run my body was screaming out in protest to stop and walk and put an ice pack on my sore arm. I ignored all this and told myself it would all be over in 30 minutes. I was utterly disappointed when I realised what I thought had been the 1 mile marker was really more like a half mile point. I thought the turn around would never come. Finally I saw it and fought off the urge to walk. 15 more minutes... I tried singing "Good Life" by OneRepublic to myself a few times which worked until I didn't know any more words. Then I tried to think about Boomer being all excited to see me when I got back and finally I turned to my cheering section for inspiration and thought they might like to see me at some point rather soon... so I kicked it up a small notch and when the beach came into view despite wanting to keel over I sprinted up through the finish line. I then went directly to the medic tent and got a nice cold ice pack for my arm. It's now been over 12 hours since I got stung and it still hurts... that little effer! Although to be fair, I'm sure I ruined his day as well.
Thanks to my cheering section, Angela, Kris and my Dad... seeing you guys at transitions made it a lot more fun for me! And also to everyone who was there in spirit : ) And a big Thank You to everyone for supporting me through all my training and racing too! And Congrats to all Iron Girls out there past and present : )
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