Desert Grande Triathlon

Saturday morning was clear and cool and most importantly calm (no wind) ... we headed down to Casa Grande for their annual Desert Grande Triathlon/Duathlon. Here is my bike with my friend, Hillary's bike... we were in the minority as far as bikes go... most people had super streamlined road bikes... maybe next year....

Hillary and I just before we lined up to start... I did the Triathlon, she did the Duathlon (torture in my opinion... running, then biking, then running AGAIN!) I'd much rather swim!

The first leg... swimming... my favorite part! As prepared as I thought I was, the swim was much harder than I anticipated! Swim time: 9:33. ( I thought I could do it in 8:30, but I've been swimming in a 25 yard pool and this was a 50 meter pool, so my estimations were a bit off I guess....) I was really trying to save my legs during the swim, so I gave it everything I had with my arms and shoulders... the end result of that was that I could barely pull myself out of the water at the end. I was shocked at how hard it was to get out of the pool!

No pictures of me on the bike, which is just as well, because this was my weakest link. I didn't have biking clothing on, didn't have a road bike and didn't even have toe clips for my shoes! Oh well, I still had fun, although I was wishing I had my ipod or someone to talk to... 10 miles riding solo gets boring and tedious after about 15 minutes. (I missed you on this stretch, Maureen! Remember how fun the bike was when we did the Pleasanton Tri all those many moons ago?!?)
I didn't pass one person on the biking portion of my race... which can be disheartening, but thankfully I was prepared for that reality. I blame it on my fat tire handicap.... My bike time 54:25 (this includes the transition from swim and dropping off the bike to start the run).

The bike to run transition is BRUTAL! I had practiced it, but it still didn't prepare me for the real thing! I used Eric's garmin GPS watch to keep track of my milage and pace and it was an absolute LIFESAVER because I could easily tell how much father I would have to go before I got to the end... here I am just crossing the finish.... I was sooooo dang happy to see that finish sign, I can't even tell you! My run time was 29:45! Based on my treadmill training, I thought my best possible run time would be about 33 minutes, so I was dang happy about this one!

My overall time was 93:43!!! I was estimating 105 minutes, so I was very happy to come in twelve minutes under the expectation! Many thanks to Eric for getting up on the crack of dawn on Saturday to drive me down and cheer for me and take pictures and to Hillary for sticking around long enough to cheer for me when I crossed the finish line! I wish I could have done the same for her, but she finished before me!

I've come to a very interesting conclusion about myself... I have to be motivated by something to workout. When I don't have a "reason" to go to the gym, I can find all kinds of reasons to talk myself out of it. When I sign up for a race, then believe me, I'm motivated to get my butt to the gym and get prepared. (I have the same issue with cleaning my house... I often invite people over because it is about the only motivator to get myself to get it clean!)

Now I'm going to attempt something I've never tried... Eric and I are going to sign up for a 10K run on Thanksgiving morning in Mesa... I've never been able to run much past 3 miles, so this will be quite the adventure for me. Only 3 and 1/2 weeks to really ramp up my running, but I think for the first time in my life, I can actually do this! And, I've finally got Eric excited about trying out the Triathlon circuit... he was really wishing he had signed up with me on Saturday morning!