Greater Gator Tri

     I just got home from Texas yesterday and I miss it already.  I spent the first 12 days with Devon and Jon and their kids and we had so much fun.  I was able to get the training in that I needed to by running or riding in the morning before the kids got up and then swimming in the afternoons during nap time.  Me and Devon stayed busy going to play dates, Bible study, shopping with the kids, taking them to the park and the children's museum, and taking them to a really cool gym where they had all of these trampolines for the kids to play on and a big foam pit for them to jump in.  I kinda wish they had something like that for adults :-)

     For the last 4 days of my trip I drove over to San Antonio to my other sister Lindsey's house. Her house was much quieter, but her little boy is also quite entertaining.  I couldn't believe how big he had gotten and how he is growing from a baby to a little boy.  We took him to the zoo where he had a blast playing in the wading river.  On Friday morning my mom flew in and that evening Devon and Jon and the kids drove over so we were back to a packed and crazy house

    

          Saturday morning was race morning and me, mom, Devon, and Lindsey got up early and headed over to the race was which was only about 30 min from Lindsey's house.  Devon and Lindsey were our photographers and cheerleaders that we couldn't have done without.  The race was olympic distance, which is a 1500m (just under a mile) swim, 40k (~24.5 mi) bike and it's typically a 10k (6.2 mi) run, but this one was a little shorter at 5.6mi.  I think there were about 230 people in the race and there was also an option to just do 2 of the 3 events which is what my mom did since she didn't have her bike with her.

     The swim was in a lake which was definitely one of the nicer lakes that I've swam in, pretty clean water and the bottom wasn't too gross, just a little rocky.  Though me and my mom had gone for a swim there the day before and afterwards we were just sitting in the water and saw a snake swim by us.  I don't even think my mom's feet touched the ground on her way out.  The start of the swim was really nice, they did a time trial start where 3 people started at a time, that way we didn't have to worry about all of the bumping and kicking that goes on when you start in a big wave. I felt pretty good during the swim and was even able to draft a little bit and came out in 26:51.

      Oh my gosh, the bike course was one of the most brutal courses that I have ever done.  We basically went up a small mountain and back down.  The hills were killer and then we had to battle a bit of a headwind on the way down.  I had heard it was going to be hilly, but I wasn't prepared for the course like I would have liked to have been.  The 24.5 mi course took me 1:15:50 and I have never been more happy to get off the bike.

     The run course was interesting, it was an off road course and several parts of it didn't even really have a trail, we were just running through tall grass, bushes, and small cacti.  It was a pretty confusing course with lots of little loops and out and backs, but very well marked.  I also experienced something I never had before, I almost got hit by a deer.  There were a pack of deer that came sprinting across the trail we were on and I thought that they had all crossed, but just as I ran by, four more came screaming by. Talk about getting the adrenaline going.  The 5.6 mi run took me 35:31 and led to a total time of 2:19:49.  I was hoping to go under 2:20, so I was happy with that and it was good enough for 2nd female overall.  The girl that beat me had the third best swim time of everybody (including the men) and beat me by 2 minutes.

      Matt (Lindsey's husband) and Jon arrived with the kids got there just before I finished.  After the race, the kids enjoyed some watermelon, played on the playground, and even went swimming in the lake.  Oh yeah, and my mom had a great race too.  Like I said, she did the swim and the run.  It was her first time swimming that distance in a race so she was a little nervous, but she did great, even getting first place in the swim/run category.  Guess that's where I get it from.