First race!!! I was like a little kid. So damn excited. I didn't feel at all ready. I was absolutely ready to race again, but my training had been so incredibly sporadic with breathing issues and injuries galore. Seriously. How often can I actually hurt myself? Every few weeks, apparently.
We got to FL. The beach. Serenity. The calm before the storm. I really do love it there, even if it is the redneck riviera. Got checked in, got all my athlete stickers and gear, and got ready. As ready as I was going to be!
Race morning. "Social distancing." Yeah right. We were packed in transition like sardines! And we had to wear masks, but volunteers rarely had them on. Great. It's fine. It's all fine. Get everything ready on my bike and it's time to head to the beach! We were still doing self seed based on estimated swim time, so I snuck in at 30-35 minutes. Or whatever that one was. Gun goes off, wait a bit more, then me!!
The swim. My happy place!!! Felt smooth, felt elegant, felt graceful. Everything just felt perfect. Turns out, and I didn't find out until after, but I took first in my age group out of the water!!! I'm glad I didn't know, but hot damn I'm a shark.
The bike. I love Florida courses. At least in PCB. Pancake flat. So drop into aero and hammer. And I did. It's an out and back, mostly, so I just kept getting distracted looking at the other side, trying to see teammates. Um, woman, how about we focus now and not crash, ok? Yeesh. Last 5 miles. Oh what's up headwind? Missed you. Cruise into T2 and I am ready.
The run. Now, I've never been a runner. And there has always been something about willingly walking instead of just powering through. But injuries and illness dictated this year that I change my ways. So I knew I was going to be doing intervals. 7 minutes run, 1 minute walk. First lap it worked out perfectly that every walk was at an aid station. Woo! The second 2 laps did not, but by that point, it was effing hot and sunny! So it was fine. I took the extra walk breaks. And then had faster run paces. And a decent overall run! Climbed literally the only hill to come across the line 11th in my age group. So close to top 10!
After a year of no races and obstacle after obstacle...
I'm back!!!
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