MY FIRST TRIATHLON IS HISTORY!

I've started thinking about doing a triathlon since I've been injured with plantar fascitiis (8 months ago!!). I am also very inspired by a close friend who is training for her first half IRONMAN and she inspired me to go forward with this sillyness! Lisa, you're the Best. =) Since I got back at my parents' house, I've worked hard on the bike and at the pool to be able to do this. Sorry, if this is long, like any other 'first' it is great to write a lot so you can remember it and see your progress as you move along!

Pre-race

I ended up having stomach issues yesterday and did not feel very well for part of the day, not sure IF it was due to pre-race jitters or just a bad spinach salad I had for lunch... LOL After 2 bottles of perrier water I was finally feeling better. Carb loaded on a wonderful chicken pasta recipe (yum make it!). I went to bed early but did not sleep well, kept dreaming of getting lost in transition or missing something to go on the bike and run... yeah everytime I woke up I told myself that's enough now! But would start dreaming the same thing again... I rarely get like that with running race anymore, seems the unexpected is frightening!

The cheering squad and I got up at 6AM, brekkie and we're out the door by 6:45AM. Here they are in all their glory! Thanks for coming out with me.

We got to the race site no problems, I went to get my race kit, my chip and get marked but the girl at the registration booth did not tell me there was a board where I could check which rack to put my bike on... I knew there was 2 waves of try-a-tri and she said to another volunteer: wave 1 red cap. So, I tought it would be written, Wave 1 Try-a-tri somewhere... We went the transition area and the bike racks were separated between Wave 1 to 12... so I had no idea which wave I was in really (I knew it wasn't the 'real' first one tough lol). I asked a bunch of girls at Rack 10 if they were doing the try-a-tri and they didn't even stop talking to answer me... only one guy turned and said he wasn't.... hum friendly! So I then ask someone who was in charge of transition area and he didn't know, so about 15 mins later and going back to check a board near registration. I knew which one was my bike rack (5th wave!!). I felt I looked so so clueless but this all new to me!

I meet up with a friend that I went to Université de Montréal with, Élaine, she was also doing her first try! It was great to see a familiar face and we went through this event together, it took some of the nervousness away. She said we were very lucky to be in the middle of the waves with a start at 9:10AM as they usually put the try-a-tri last, thank god because it was a HOT one today!

Off we went to the pool for a little warm-up and we anxiously waited our wave to start. We had a little race meeting and it turns out I was on the first wave of the try-a-tri. Most of the people in my wave we're doing their first one too! I was in Couloir 5 and Élaine went to Couloir 6.

Anxiously waiting for the start of my wave above!

Swim (300m in 6:52 with T1)

I believe I'm a good swimmer, my technique is not perfect but I am like a fish in the water so I knew this was going to be faily easy for me. My tryouts at the pool were close to 9-10 mins for 300 m so my goal was to go sub-9min, so I was delighted to see a sub 7 mins!!

I'm in the red cap, the girl in the green cap, asked me what my 300m time was and she tought she was faster so I let her go first... after 1 lap I had to pass her cause she was going to slow! This time included a run of about 200m =) It was a pretty weird feeling to just start running after you've been in the pool, I was definitely out of breath when I reached transition! I was 17th overall when I got out of the pool.

Bike (13.2K in 36:18 with T2 -garmin says 33:44)

After crossing on the mat, I reached my place and was pretty quick on putting everything on. Got the garmin on Auto multisports (thanks to Leanafor pointing that to me!). More running and off I went, hop on the bike. I had to do 3 loops of a 4.4K course. Élaine passed me about 2 mins in the bike ride! She has a neat bike =) It took me about half a loop to get my breathing under control, I think I pushed a little on the swim lol Granny was doing good, I had no clue of my speed as the multisport just says Bike and doesn't give you a speed... oh well, I went by perceived exertion. It was a flat bike course, great volunteers cheering too. I had lots of fun, one of the bike marshall even said to me it was great to see such a great smile. =) My goal was to go sub 40 mins so I'm very please with Granny's performance, however, she's still pretty old and rusty so I went from 17th to 35th but I'm ok with that. I knew my bike had limitations and I wasn't there to win any speeding contest! Off from the bike and run about 300 m again to my bike rack, I was out of breath really bad, I had to walk and take it easy there (as you can see in my exhausted face!).

Run (2.5K in 18:11 -garmin says 18:26 for 2.61K)

I knew I had hit lap too soon for the run so that explain the extra garmin time, guess what, I was excited to start running! Soon realised my legs felt like lead... oops Plus, I had loosend my shoelace A LOT so that it would be easy to put them on in transition but they were too lose... so yeah no time to stop and undo the crazy knot I did LOL

Heard my Mom cheering me a lot at that point and that really helped cause I felt I was going SO slow. First mile poped up at 11:22 and I was happy it was under 12 min/mile, I felt I was going much slower tough! As soon as I saw the finish line I speed up and heard my family cheering =) Total time 1:01:21!

It was a great experience and I'm very happy I went through with it. I liked it a lot, I do find it is a very expensive sport and that might prevent me from doing a lot of it... oh well, I'll have a job someday =)

Thanks for reading up to the end!!!