Dinner and Triathlon

I had my second triathlon on the 27th. It was awesome. Even more awesome was that I was able to do it with my sister, Angela. It was a 500 yard swim, 16 mile bike (which was quite hilly), and a 5K (3.12 mile) run. I clocked in at 1 hour 47 minutes and 10 seconds. My sister got 1 hour 46 minutes and 22 seconds and got second place and her chain on her bike even fell off. I forgot my number on the run so I had to go back to the transition area to get it. If you're going to forget something at a triathlon don't let it be your number. I got 17th out of 32 women and 4th out of my age division. I think I did ok for not training very hard. Watch for me next year I'm going to the olympics. Oh wait the olympics aren't next year. I guess I won't be going to the olympics after all. ;-)


We went to Applebees the night before. This was not a very big town so they didn't have any pasta places around. Angela and I both had pasta at Applebees though. We almost didn't get to eat there because their gas line blew up or something. I guess it was a small explosion because we didn't hear it or know anything about it until our waitress came and told us. Our food was already done though so we got what we ordered. Some people had to change their orders.


My sister and her boyfriend, Gary. He's a really cool guy.


Look at how happy Micah looks. It might have been the 2 hour drive with the three girls. I think we were all tired at this point.


We are so beautiful!

The swim. I am the one with the blue goggles on.


Transitioning to the bike.


Getting ready to get on my bike.


I think this is the end of the run. I was kind of embarassed at this point that I had forgotten my number. One of the ladies was pretty ticked off but the other one took my name down and told me to get my tag off my number. I was very grateful that they didn't disqualify me. So that's it for triathlons this year. My next event will be my 5K for the Susan G. Komen foundation. Wish me luck on that one.

Me and Angela

So I have to mention my sister, Angela's name in this post a lot as she was offended that I didn't mention that I talked to her on the phone yesterday. So Angela and I are going to be doing a trithlon on Saturday. It's supposed to rain in PA where we're doing it but I hope that it doesn't. Wish Angela and I good luck. ;-P Love you Angela!

Triathlon splits

I finally got my splits from my triathlon but I think they're a little wrong. They timed the swim but they didn't stop the swim time until you were down the hill going into the transition area. Every other time is right but when I got into the pool Micah took a picture and when I got out of the pool Micah took a picture so I know my time on the actual 300 meter swim was 7 minutes 39 seconds but here's what they had for me. By the way, I already know I need to work on my transition times. They were quite high.

300 meter swim 8 minutes 14 seconds
Transition 1: 1 minute 16 seconds
11.5 mile Bike 39 minutes 32 seconds Average of 16.8 MPH
Transition 2: 1 minute 52 seconds
3.1 mile Run 27 minutes 11 seconds Run per Mile: 8:46
Overall Time 1:18:05.3

I know what I can cut back in and hopefully next time you'll see lower times or the same times for more mileage. I forgot to mention that my inspiration to start doing triathlons are my sisters Melissa and Angela. They kick butt at their triathlons so I figured I can at least try. You guys are awesome.

Bike, Run and the end of the race

The transition was something that worried me a bit just because I've never done it before. I didn't do great but I didn't do poorly in transition either. I had to put on my shoes and helmet and get ready for the bike and then I had to do the same with the run.

Here I am getting my bike down to go for the bike ride.


Here's the end of the race. I had a little left in me... surprisingly... so I had a kick at the end. I know now that I need to go a little harder on the bike and run so I'm more worn out at the end. ;-)

Samara wanted a drink of Mommy's water at the end so here she is drinking my water. I'm so glad that my kids were able to see me do this. Alyssa keeps saying that she wants to do a triathlon now. I told her that she had to learn to ride her bike without training wheels and learn how to swim and then I'd let her. She got really excited and started running all over the house saying that she was training for her triathlon.


I am so proud of my friend that we were able to do something like this together. It was awesome. So the swim was 300 meters, bike 11.5 miles, and then run 3.1 miles. I don't know my split times yet but I will post them as soon as I do know. My overall time was 1 hour 18 minutes and 5.3 seconds. I was 10th in the 25-29 year old age group. I was 131st overall men and women out of over 310. I was the 38th female... I'm not sure how many raced though. When I find out my splits I'll be posting those as well. Thanks for everyone's support and confidence in me. You'll hear about me doing this again I'm sure. I'm kind of lost as to what to do next. I guess I can just start training for next year. Maybe a marathon soon!!! Who knows.

The Swim

Don't laugh at my swim technique. I did better than some. I'm the one that's headed to the right.




I'm getting out of the pool in the middle getting ready to run down the slippery grass hill to my bike. I was scared of falling down that hill and then scared of falling off my bike again. I didn't though. That was one of my main goals and I made it.

Race Day... Before the Race

Here are a few pictures before the race starts

Me and my racing buddy.


Standing in lane waiting to get into the pool. I'm the one behind the guy that looks like he's talking.


The transition area.

Night Before the Race

I probably shouldn't post all the pictures I have but I want everyone to see the events that took place on Sunday. For those who don't know I did my first triathlon on Sunday. So enjoy the next few posts as they will spell out our adventures of my first triathlon.

Alyssa and Samara had a hard time falling asleep they were sooooo excited.


We had to roll Nattie's crib into the bathroom so that she couldn't see us. She didn't want to sleep if we were awake.


My handsome hubby.


I can't believe we have a picture of me the night before the race. I thought I had the camera the whole time.

Giant OCR 3

I will try to take pictures of my actual bike sometime but here is a picture of the exact bike that I got. This is just a picture off of a website and not my actual bike. It's a Giant OCR3. Syssa keeps saying that when she gets bigger that she wants a Giant bike too.

Clipless Pedals

I'm going to tell on myself a little here. I got my bike about a week ago as you all know if you've read my blog before. With my bike I also got clipless pedals. For those who don't know what these are I will explain. These pedals have a spot to clip special shoes that have a cleat into the pedal so that your feet don't shift when you ride and you can also pull up and push down to give you more speed because your shoe is completely attached to the pedal. In order to get the cleat out of the pedal you have to kick your heal out and it will detach. So I was riding a couple days ago with a friend and I stopped at the first stoplight no problem, second stoplight, I stopped and no problems, third stoplight I stopped and forgot to take my foot out of my pedal. Yeah I fell off my bike, the bike fell on top of me and my friend was behind me so she almost hit me. Now other than my ego being hurt pretty bad I didn't get hurt other than a bruised knee. It could've been worse than it was. I told myself that would never happen again. HAHAHAHA. Yesterday I went for about a 9 mile bike ride and did really well the whole time. I unclipped my foot out of the pedal and everything when I got home. I hit the curb and was so focussed on my pedal being unclipped the bike started tipping to the side opposite of my unclipped foot and down I went... again. This time the metal pedal hit my ankle. It hurt pretty bad and I have a bruise from it but again it could've been worse. I also have other bruises from where my pedals have hit my legs while not riding my bike. If I get a chance I'll take a picture of my legs so you all can see the beautiful bruises a new bike leads to. By the way you can laugh... I do.

Bike Hunting

I just realized that I told you all that I got a bike but didn't tell you how I came to get the bike I got. We looked around for a long while and decided that I was going to get a Jamis Ventura Sport. It's the lowest price of the higher end bikes and I thought it would be perfect for what I was going to use it for. So we went to the bike shop and ordered one since they didnt' have any my size. They said it would take about 7 days. I called back a couple times between 10 and 14 days and they just said that my bike hadn't come in yet. So I waited and finally after about 2 1/2 weeks I called them back and they said that the company had sent them a different bike not the one I ordered. He said that they were out of the bike that I wanted. So I asked what is compareable to the Jamis Ventura Sport for around the same price. He said that a Satellite would be a compareable bike. I said ok and ordered it. So I started doing a little more research on the bike and come to find out it's a steel bike. The one I wanted was Aluminum and there is a weight difference between steel and aluminum bikes. Finally I went, after more research, to a bike shop closer to my house and bought a Giant OCR3 for about 100.00 more than I originally wanted to spend. My giant has a couple features that are better than the Jamis Ventura Sport anyways, like it has a carbon fiber fork. Carbon is extremely light. Anyways I'm finally a month and a half later getting phone calls saying that my Satellite bike is in. After a month and a half I don't want it!! Anyways. In case you were interested that is the bike story.

Triathlon

The triathlon that I'm doing is coming up soon. I'm really excited and really nervous. I just got my bike on Tuesday and have only ridden it once since I got it and I love it so far. I was kind of nervous to ride it because it's a road bike not a crumby Wal Mart mountain bike. I think I'm pretty ready though. I better be since it's next month. Since now I have one of my friends coming with me to do it I'm a little more relaxed. I feel like I'm going through it with somebody and not by myself anymore. Well, I just wanted to keep you all updated on my training and let you all know that I'm still planning on doing it. I'll post some pictures of my bike and my bike shoes when I get a chance. Have a great day everyone!

Triathlon Training

So, I have decided that I'm going to do a triathlon. My training officially started yesterday. We got a cheap treadmill off of Craigslist and I have a membership to a recreational center that has a pool. There is a small gym close to my house that I'll be practicing my bike at, at least while it's cold. I ran yesterday and about died and am sore today but it's a good feeling. I'm going to do the hardest part I think for me today and that's the swimming. Hopefully I'll catch on at some point. I'm bound and determined to at least finish one and see if I want to do another later on. I'm going to be doing it in July so wish me luck. I'll keep everyone posted about how my training is coming along