Third one is a charm

Finally, I’ve completed a Triathlon. I am now a tri-athlete!

My first tri, at the Philly Danskin tri http://www.sheroxtri.com/Philadelphia-PA-1162.html ended in disappointment. The swim portion was cancelled because of severe weather (the organizers couldn’t clean up the Schuylkill river fast enough, after the heavy morning rains), so it turned into a duo-athlon.
However, by the middle of my 15-mile bike ride, the heavens opened up and the whole thing was called off. I was thankful that they finally called it off, because while we were riding, lighting was striking 50 feet in front of us. So,in the end, I did not get to complete this triathlon. My main takeaway from this experience was to pay attention to the body of water that I will be swimming in. In other words, no Schuylkill, no Hudson…no city water.

My next attempt at a Tri was at the Long Branch Triathlon sponsored by the Sandy Hookers http://www.sandyhookers.org/. It was the first time I swam in the ocean and it was awesome! This was supposed to be a trial run so I chose the short course (1/4 mile swim, 9 mile bike and a 3 mile run.) Well, I ended up doing a longer bike (18 miles) because I did not hear when the course director said, one loop for short course, two loops for long course. I attribute this brain freeze to my lack of sleep the night before as I stayed up late packing for our Cape May vacation, which started, when I was finished the race. My take away here: get some sleep if you are planning to do a triathlon the next morning.

And now today---can’t say enough about how awesome it was. I swam, I biked, I ran, I rocked!! Finally, I can say I am a triathlete. In the next few days I will look at the results http://www.sheroxtri.com/NY-Metro-Results.html and examine the race a little closely. Right now, all I can say is that I am happy that I completed it safely and injury-free and that Jim and the girls were there to see it.