There are 2 type of Triathletes....

There are TWO type of Triathletes.....Those who pee in their wetsuits, and those who lie about it.

Part 1: Pre Race-

You know that feeling where you have a test and you didn't study, imagine that x100.  That's how freaked out I was about this race.  I've only done Sprint distance triathlons and this was my first Olympic distance (or International distance).  Sure, I trained, but until you do it there is a level of pure terror about the unexpected.

Saturday night Matt sets the alarm clock, 3:30 am (ugh, just thinking about it makes me sleepy).  I didn't sleep really well.  Neither did the kids, but that's how it always goes when you need to sleep.  The morning comes, the alarm goes off, I'm up and getting ready.  Matt calls to me, "Um, Terri... The alarm clock".  I start to panic. The time frame was important.  If I was late I would miss my race! You know that Seinfield episode with the marathon runner, well, I thought that that was going to happen to me. No, getting up late was not the problem, we got up an hour EARLY! Our clock thought it was daylight saving time and set itself forward 1 hour.  We got up at 2:30 am.  That's a first for me, sure I've stayed up that late, but never gotten up that early. We decided to stay awake and get everything ready and not worry about rushing. 

Once we got to Kemah Matt dropped me off and I got my bike set up in the transition area.  I walked about half a mile to the boat!  I got my wetsuit on and boarded. 

 This is the "Colonel". I was on the second floor with about 650 other racers. 

Part 2: The Swim-

The sun over the water was so pretty, but I didn't know about that till after the race. The boat took us out 1.5k (that's about 1 mile) and when the sun came up it was time to start the race.  Of course I still had to wait another 30 min. before I could start.  The pros (yes, real pro triathletes participated and won some serious dough) and basically everyone else got to go before I did.  The start was SCARY.  I knew we were going to have to jump in the ocean 1 mile out at sea, but I was not anticipating the drop.  It's not like jumping in a swimming pool a few inches below the edge, it was a 4-5 foot drop. And then it was rough, cold, water.  Hmm, a mile swim looks a lot longer as a strait shot.  You are basically in a long line, when your turn comes up, you just jump in and start swimming.  There is absolutely no time to hesitate, you just jump in and swim.  After I jumped in my first thought was that the wet suit was doing a good job keeping me warm, good! Second thought was how opaque the water was (hmm brown, nice). The third thought was (and the strongest thought was) how absolutely disgusting the sea water tasted in my mouth.  The water was choppy 1 1/2 foot swells, it made not swallowing the water very hard.  YUMMY, just what I wanted to wash down my breakfast, nasty brown, seawater!  There were people everywhere, arms, legs, heads, feet.  I got kicked punched and swam on and I even did my share of that too.  At one point I noticed that I hadn't been hit in a long time.  Shoot, I was way off course! There was a strong cross current that carried me away.  Then I had to spend precious time fighting the current to get back on course.  I'm complaining about the bad stuff, but I felt pretty good.  I came in just over the time I planned on doing it, but with my little detour, I'm happy about it.

Getting out of the water was new.  They had strippers (get your head out of the gutter) I'm talking about wetsuit strippers. Take the top off and then someone yanks the rest off, and voila, no more wetsuit! It's actually really impressive, since it takes 20 minutes to get a wetsuit on.  There was the longest run to the transition, and I was already tired.

Part 3: The bike-

15 mph winds on a bike makes for some slow biking. I had some good passing, that is to say, plenty of people passed me.  I coped with it by thinking that I already passed these people on the swim, and they were just catching up to me.  The ride was 40k (around 26 miles).  I wasn't worried about the distance I had been doing double that since the month before, but it seemed so long to me.  I was tired from the swim, battling the wind, and riding on an unknown course. Despite all that my time was about what I had been training for.  Here's a gross out factor, I kept blowing my nose, and the junk that came out was black from the nasty water! At about mile 20 I started to get really grateful for all the police holding up traffic for us.  So I started thanking them as I passed.  Some seemed pleased, some happy, some just nodded.  It made me feel good, so I kept doing it.   I know, I'm the only triathlete that cheers for the volunteers.

Part 4 - The dreaded Run-

I liked this picture of me in transition, I'm stuffing food in my pockets for the run, yum.

Okay so running is NOT my strongest sport.  And I was feeling drained.  The first mile was more of a walk/and run.  I was content doing what I needed to do to finish, so I wasn't worried about it. But after mile 1 I started to feel better, I got some energy back and started to run (albeit slowly). I ran most of the course, I stopped and walked at the water stations, but I was pleased with how I was feeling.  I continued my cheering for everyone, athletes that passed me, athletes I passed, people handing out water, police and paramedics.  I had a smile on my face the whole time.  The last two weeks I was having shin pain, so I didn't run for the two weeks leading up to the race.  It was the right choice, I had no shin pain! At about mile 3 a guy I passed on the bike cought up to me and starting running with me. It was nice to have some company, especially since we still had the causeway coming up.  The causeway scared me.  Sure there are little hills when I run (but this is Houston people) elevation changes in runs are not an issue.  But the causeway is the mother of hills, it's long and it's high, this is why the professional athletes were here. Yes, I did it I ran up the causeway, and then down it. Oh, but here's the best part, you turn around at the bottom, and get to do it again -nice. The second time around was not so great, it was mostly a run/walk hybrid again.  Oh and the worst part is the causeway is around mile 4.5 through mile 6, so you've already run a pretty good distance.  But at the bottom you are almost done.  I put it into high gear and sprinted across the finish (dang, I had enough to sprint, I should have run harder).

Overall Time 3hours 42 min. 

Part 5: Post race wrap up-

I had a blast.  I'm so glad I finished.  I am already starting to think about the next races and where I can do better.  This was definitely not your ma & pa's tri.  The athletes were serious about what they do.  I was the only one I talked to that didn't have a coach.  You didn't see mountain bikes, or touring bikes, they were all  tri bikes and fancy road bikes.  In my other races I was a super fast swimmer, in this race, I was in the middle of the pack swimmer.  In other races I am a middle of the pack biker, but in this race I was in the bottom half.  I am usually a back of the packer runner...hmm, at least that didn't change.

I have such a fun hobby, you should tri it! Get it.

Check out my cute cheering squad!

These boys got up so early to support me.  My husband is a saint, he's so supportive!

We thought we would be a little bad and have some Sunday family fun at the boardwalk. We let the boys ride a few rides and we all took a ride on the famous Kemah Train. I felt like a dork in my tri suit. I smelled, and my hair was stiff from saltwater, and I was covered in salt from sweating, but it was great fun.