2:59:35
1/4 Athena (Woohoo! First place!!)
3/7 age group
18/46 Females
1500mSwim: 32:53 T1: 1:19 40KBike: 1:27:11 T2: 0:44 10KRun: 57:31
Elevation and Course for Bike. x2
Elevation and Course for Run. x2
Pros:
Water bottles at the turn around for the bike. I needed that water, happy to have it.
The whole course is pretty straight forward and well marked.
Lots of eager volunteers, lots of cheering and smiling faces.
Nice shirt, nice license plate awards.
Food!! Hot dogs, chips and cookies afterwards, N'om....
Cons:
Male and female started the swim together, lots of bumper bodies.
Lots of traffic on old Route 66.
The bike course is bumpy, lots of crevices to ride around.
First water stop was less than a tenth of a mile into the run. It would have been more useful about a half mile in so it could be used four times instead of two.
The awards were license plates, cool, but since I don't plan on putting it on my car I think I'd rather had a medal to let my kids play with.
Swim: Be prepared you cannot see in this water. I mean it. Not a bit, you can't see your arms or hands. It is all greenish brown. I heard a lot of out of towners talking about this on the second day, they couldn't believe how murky it was.
Bike: It is not flat, but not hilly. It's kind of hard to explain. If you are from around here, it's not Hefner, but it's not Edmond or Norman.
Run: Flat, easy winding road. For the barefooters or minimalists among us, not the best paved road. Asphalt, the first mile is not too bad, but the further you get the more protruding rocks there are and a few gravel roads that meet it so some debris to avoid.
I loved this race. This morning found me in the right frame of mind. I put aside my bike envy from the day before, determined to have the best race I could possibly have. My first Olympic Tri and I was going to have a good time! They announced a few minutes before start that the men and women would start together, all the women let out a groan. Seriously, it was funny. The first trip out was too crowded. Climbing on people, getting kicked. I started to go off course again after the first turn around, found it was less crowded, so tried to keep my distance without going too far off course. The beach run, blah, only one person who got out of the water at the same time actually ran. The rest of us walked our way back into the water. In fact the 10 or so of us took the time to yell at a guy swimming the completely wrong direction! I think we all felt the same way about getting back in, but in we went. I stayed far left of the buoys and managed to not run into anyone until the turn around. I decided I lost too much time trying to stay out of the crowd. I hugged the buoys and sure enough began climbing over more people.
The bike was no different than the day before, same route, same hair pin turn, same gradual hills, only twice the fun! I heard two people fell on the turnaround, thankfully I was not one of them. That good rhythm set in about the 9 mile mark, just to disappear when I dropped my chain at the bottom of the hill in the 12th mile. So frustrating, my legs never felt as good after that. It took too much out of them to climb that hill with no momentum. Plenty of blue haired old folks headed for sunday church around to try to hit cyclists. There were a few close calls that I saw including one of my own. I wish they could close parts of the route to traffic. I heard there was even a farm combine blocking the race at one point. Glad I didn't have to deal with that! My cycling buddies cheered me on as I glided into transition. I needed the encouragement, it made my legs lighter to see them. My thigh felt off going into the run, fortunately it eased up after about a mile. Nearly ran off wearing my helmet. Took a long pause to decide whether to take my vibrams with me as backup or not. Glad I decided not to, if I'd taken the time to put them on I wouldn't have got my goal time!
I took the time to put on my camelbak, glad I did. Worth the extra weight, I didn't fill it completely, but I managed to drink every bit of it. The half way point handed out Heed, made by Hammer.. I think, pretty good. Never tried it before I'll have to do some research on it. Hot, from beginning to end. I expected it since the last 15 minutes the day before were hot. After I hit 4.6 miles I took it up a notch and ran harder. In the last mile the pavement started to heat up, not pleasant for the feet, but nothing like Redbud. I started to feel a chill, knowing enough that it is a bad sign I pulled back a little bit, but when I saw that clock under 3 hours I ran as hard as I could. I knew it would be close, but I was going to get my 3 hours!!! Then as I put on the breaks, crossing the finish, I heard my husband calling my name. He surprised me with my three girls at the finish. I fell to the ground and hugged my babies. Not that I needed to fall to the ground, I was so happy to see my babies I just wanted to lay there and hug them all at once. I cannot explain the feeling of crossing the finish line. I set a goal and I did it. I wasn't disappointed in my performance or any part of the race. I felt so great to meet a goal. I usually set my goals above what I'm capable of. It was wonderful. I cannot wait to do another Olympic distance.
