I am woman, hear me whine

I finished my 5th triathlon this morning. Before you get too impressed, though, I should point out that they've all been sprint distance events (400 to 800 meter swim, 9 to 12 mile bike, 5K run) and not IronMan length (2 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run). And that's five spread over the course of the past four years, although the last two have been within the past month. (Okay, I guess you can be just a little impressed.) I actually wasn't planning on doing this race, but my friend Stacey signed up, and this was going to be her first race, and I didn't want her to have to drive down all by herself, so I registered, too. I'm nice like that.

We've had beautiful weather the past few weeks, with temperatures reaching the low 80s most days. This week has been no exception, until, of course, today. I knew it was supposed to be cooler, with highs in the low 60s, but I thought the rain wasn't supposed to roll in until the afternoon. Nope. When I went out to load my stuff in the car at 7 a.m., it was POURING rain. And cold. As we drove to the race location, the car said the ambient temperature was 52.

This is how everyone was dressed before the start of the race.

And this is how we had to dress to start the swim. Do we look cold? We were! The pool was indoors, but the transition area (where we had to leave our stuff) was outside in the freezing rain, and we had to cross a parking lot and a baseball field barefoot to get to the race start. See that black lump on the ground, between the two bike tires? That would be one of the garbage bags that we went and purchased at a nearby grocery store in a vain attempt to keep at least some of our gear dry. (We also handed some out to other grateful triathletes.) (Did I mention it was wet? And cold?)

Since I hadn't planned to do this race until a week ago, I never really felt like I got mentally geared up for it. I kept thinking, "Oh, I'm just going down to keep Stacey company. I don't really care how I do. I'm just going to take it easy." And I just kept that attitude up all the way through the race. Good thing, because if I'd had a time goal in mind, I wouldn't have even come close. I'm not a fast cyclist anyway, and this ride was pretty tough, with rain pelting me every inch of the 11.5 miles, water and dirt getting kicked up into my face by the bike tires, and a stiff headwind on the downhill section. I've never been so happy to get off a bike! (Stacey said she actually had a lot of fun on the bike leg. I think I hate her.) After that ride, I couldn't even feel my legs for the first mile or so of the run. And then once I was finally loosened up, a slight nagging stiffness in my right hip suddenly flared into a sharp stabbing pain that forced me to walk a lot more than I wanted to. Good times.

All of the information in the above paragraph is my way of making excuses for the fact that Stacey completely kicked my booty in the race! She beat me by almost five minutes. Way to go, tri newbie! I think I beat her on the swim and the run, but she totally smoked me on the bike and both transitions. But the greater good has been served, because now she's been bitten by the tri bug, and we're already planning to get a group of moms together for some races next year. If you want to join us, just let me know. I mean, who wouldn't want to participate in an event that makes your formerly white shoes and socks look like this?