My Danskin recap

(warning long post!)

Ran the danskin tri today! Yeah!!! It started off ominious.....I didn't sleep well in the hotel and got like 3 hours sleep. Then it rained all night and was still raining in this morning. Did I tell you I hate Seattle some days!! But, I was still nervous but excited and glad the day had finally arrived. I figured, I was going to get wet in the swim anyhow so all I was worried about was not wrecking my bike or slipping on the run!

Here's pictures before the race: (damn it was early like 6am! This is me, I am not stripping they just had to check your number on your arm to let you into the transition area where your bike and gear go.)

I saw my friend getting ready at the transition area and she had her wet suit on. I don't have a good wetsuit and scuba diving suits are not good for tri swimming. So I was there and 'au natural' as they say...I mean no makeup which is rare on some days for me. I was getting the nervous "I need to go to the bathroom" and was in the line for the porta potties 2 or 3 times. I got down to the swim area and waiting with a gazillion other ladies for the start of my wave or heat as they call it. I guess about 100 in my group. There were 5,125 ladies doing this race! It was the biggest danskin race ever they said. It was well organized and we tried not to mow each other over. I was very nervous and started at the back of the pack after the rousing/inpiring words from the famous tri lady 'Sally Edwards'. I maybe started out too fast and 1/2 way through I was thinking "what did I get myself into?" Here's some swim pictures but no pictures of me! I'm chicken as I didn't like the pic of me.

But the finish finally came and then jogged a bit back to the transition area. Got on my shoes, socks, shirt and helmut and took off on the bike. It was wet and a little windy, especially out over the I-90 bridge over the lake to Mercer Island. We did an out and back course and I got tired of hearing 'passing on your left'. I knew it would happen. I'm not that speedy. I got back from surviving the hills on the course (not too bad) and dropped off the bike and got my hat and on to the run. Here's me on the bike (not a pretty picture, ha!):

This is the part I had been dreading, the run. I'm not the best runner. I jogged and waved at my family and then later walked. Then I talked to a few ladies I had seen on the bike and then ran again. I kept seeing the same ladies as they seemed to be at the same pace. Later I ran into an older lady and talked to her up the giant hill toward the end of the course. A few people stopped to ask me about my sign on my back regarding my friend Dawn who is dealing with cancer. I was really tired but ran on to the end of the race. I was wet and cold but felt pretty good! I completed the race in about the amount of time I thought I would. Ok, my results were:

Overall rank: 2740 of 3496
Swim: 19:05 (660 yards, under 1/2 mile)
Bike: 54:53 (12.4 mile bike)
Run: 45:14 (3.1 mile run)
Overall time: 2 hours, 10 minutes

I was happy with that as I thought I would be somewhere around 2 hours 20 or 30 minutes. My run did suck but I did talk quite a bit and I enjoyed it more that way. In future years (if there future years for this?) I plan on improving quite a bit. My friend did it in 1 hour 34 minutes so she was doing well. My plan of attack was not to be the last in the race or my age group and I accomplished that and it feels good!

I scored some free stuff like a cool tank fushia tank top that says 'danskin' and a bag. Here are some photos of the race. I am the one in the white shirt/black shorts. I wasn't brave enough to wear the tri suit by itself once I got done with the swim. It would have looked like my friend Kathy's pictured here (I mean same kind of suit...why oh why did I wear white instead of black. ha!). Here's my son beside me in the photo too.

My son was cute, as before the finish line he ran along side me across the finish line and got a medal too. ha! He did that with his dad a while back too and it was sweet.

Also, the reason I did this was for my friend Dawn and I wore a sign in honor of her on my back. Picture here:

It was really was moving to see the cancer survivors racing and meet some of them. Some quotes I love about (saw at) the race were:

On the medal: "The woman who starts the race is not the same woman who finishes the race" and on some shirts people were wearing "It's not the act of finishing that matters, it is that I began at all" or something to that effect.

Gotta go to bed as I'm beat and have sore knees and quads! Now, I will stop talking about the race (probably not!). My mom has some better photos and I will get one by a professional photogragher sometime soon. It was a great experience and I felt like an athlete for one day and it is one day in my life that I won't forget.