I'm an Olympic Athlete

Well, sort of…Why?

I FINISHED MY FIRST OLYMPIC DISTANCE TRIATHLON!

And, I must say… I rocked it. Read ‘em and weep. I did.

Swim: 0:30:00.566

T0: 0:02:10.608

T1: 0:01:57.140

Bike: 1:15:59.951

T2: 0:01:20.643

Run: 0:51:00.745

Finish: 2:42:29.653

I came in 7th for my age group — and truly feel I gave it everything I had. I age up in January, and had I been in the 30-34 age group today, I would have come in 2nd! Incentive for getting older.

The preparation started last night with homemade pizza (carb loading):

Then, I got to bed early because I had a 4am wakeup call. Yeah, we triathletes are a dedicated bunch.

Packed up my gear:

And fueled up:

Got to the triathlon site and got set up:

And before too long, it was time to go!

I don’t have too many pictures from along the course, but it was a really nice day. I had some real trouble with my leg (the same injury that’s been plaguing me for a week or so) so I just told myself, “give it everything you have, and if you can’t give it anymore, you won’t have any regrets.”

The swim was great — I only got kicked twice — and I was able to get on my bike without too many problems. It was a beautiful, flat course. My only complaint? This triathlon had the Olympic athletes doing two laps of the sprint course. So I had to see everything twice, which was a little mind-numbing.

I had two packets of gel on the bike — one Hammer gel and one Rocktane. I went against the rules of competing, and tried the gels for the first time ever. Normally,  I don’t eat before my rides or runs because it just doesn’t sit well. But I burned 1,300 calories over the nearly 3 hours, and I knew I needed to fuel up!

Started the run and every step was painful. But at some point, it hurt so much that I went into survival mode — and stopped feeling the pain! Guess who I ran into as I started my final lap of the run? CAITLIN!!

She snapped these great pictures of me:

It was so great to see a familiar face…and pushed me across the finish line!

For the record, Lucas is the world’s most supportive husband, and comes to all my events with me. I FORCED him to take this race off, because he had an amazing opportunity to do a pub crawl with some of the biggest names in brewing and the beer business…that meant he got home at 4am this morning, as I was getting up.

Then we BOTH got to hang out doing something we love a lot:

Drinking beer! I loved flashing the triathlon tattoos. We volunteered at a big beer festival, and got to enjoy some of our wares, as well. I earned it, right? Plus, we got paid in beer. Lucas is on his way home with several CASES of beer, and I know he’ll be showing it off on his blog, so be sure to check it out!

I’m ready for my post-triathlon dinner (sausages and french fries — a rare high-calorie treat!) and my pillow.

Thanks so much to ALL of you who left me comments here and on Twitter. I cried when I read them all. I appreciate the support so much!