Triathlon, revisited

So, unlike last time, two years ago, I very much do want to do a triathlon again, and here it is, only days after finishing this year’s. I managed to finish in a slightly better time than my last attempt, too, which was my goal. Hurrah!

While I was standing around in my swimsuit and swimcap, waiting for my wave to start, I made a little small talk with the people around me. Then one of them looks at me more closely and calls me by my most-commonly-incorrect-version-of-my-name. “Yes?” I say, because, well, close enough. She points to herself and says, “Kathy F---“! A name that sounded vaguely familiar from high school. That woman is seriously gifted. Recognized me after 25 years, in a swimcap. I looked her up in the yearbook when I got home. Yep. That was her. How do people *do* that?

Anyway, the water temperature was only 70, which worried me. A lot of women chose to wear wetsuits, but I decided I didn’t want to deal with all that. When I first started swimming, I took stock of why I was gasping and flailing about. Turns out I wasn’t panicking. I was freezing. Did a lot of backstroke. Tried to avoid hitting people. Felt pretty good when it was over.

Got on my bike and averaged 17.6 mph, despite the wind. Whee!

Parked the bike (after going down the wrong bike rack lane, gah! Transitions are tricky.) and started the run. At no point did the run really feel great. I chose to carry my water bottle, and I’m glad I did. I can’t drink out of those little cups, and I was really dehydrated. I am a little bummed that my time didn’t reflect all the running I did going into the race. I did 4 miles in 40 minutes on the bike path recently! But oh well.

I do love looking at the results in detail. The third and fourth place overall finishers were 16 and 14 years old, which is amazing. There was also a 77 year old who finished in 2:05! WOW! And a 72 year old beat me by 12 minutes. Inspiring.

In related news, I found out today that I raised over $1000 for the school garden. Fundraising is uncomfortable, but I assume most people I know give to charity, so it’s just a matter of asking at the right time. People feel good when they give, and I’m helping that along. Thanks to all of you who threw in some bucks!

Plus doing the fundraising gave me an excuse to call one of my college friends who I don’t talk to often enough. I love friends that still make you laugh even when you don't talk very often. Konrad, you are a gem. I bet I’d even recognize you in a swimcap. A really flowery old-lady one.