I meant to post this a very long time ago, but apparently never got around to adding the picture, and therefore posting....
My big athletic goal this summer is to do the Wasa olympic distance triathlon (1500m open water swim, 40km road bike, and 10km run) on June 12. I've been training with a great group of girls since January at the local triathlon shop. Most of the girls have been training for a triathlon that is in Las Vegas this weekend, but with my upcoming trip to Greece I decided to save my money and vacation time and just do local races this summer. Since I'm not going to the Vegas race, and I haven't done a triathlon in 5 years, I was poking around to see if there was something I could do close by as a warm up race in May. I ended up signing up to do the Tri Diva Tri on May 2, a women's only super sprint (250m swim, 9km bike, 2.5km run) in Airdrie.
We've had a pretty crappy spring in Calgary so the weather on race day wasn't that great. It was cloudy, windy and cold and I was worried about getting cold in my spiffy new triathlon outfit. Luckily I have a pretty good coach who can advise me about these things and the weather ended up not being an issue. In terms of the actual race...My swim is the event that I struggle with the most, and I just tried to go fast and relax at the same time. Even though it only took 6 minutes it felt really long! The ride went really well, it's usually my best event. I was passing people like crazy and felt really good pushing it on the bike. I tried to settle into the run but find the transition from running to biking hard. I still need to work on that for Wasa! I ended up finishing 17th in the swim, 4th in the bike, and 9th in the run which combined for the overall win!!! There were a lot of women racing who had never done a triathlon before, but I definitely wasn't expecting that result! In a regular local triathlon with all the hardcore triathletes competing I think the result would be a little different....
My parents were in town for the weekend and came out to watch the race with Vince. It was great to have a little fan club =) Since the race was more about getting people out to participate and not as much about the competition they didn't give out any prizes. Vince and my dad decided that I needed a trophy and stopped on their way home to pick up this little guy for me. He'll be a great addition to my garden this summer!
Update: I not only survived the Wasa triathlon, but managed to make my goal of finishing in under 3 hours, with a time of 2:48:24. Good enough for 93rd out of 238 women. I left for Greece 5 days later and had the best vacation ever!
