My first Triathlon!

Yesterday I participated in my first triathlon race. Let me tell you, this kind of race is no joke. I was instructed to enjoy my first race and not try to go out and push myself so hard that I wouldn't want to do another. Even though I am very competitive, I just went out and did my best and worked with my strengths. Even though I have lost almost 40 pounds the last 5 months, I did not train specifically for this race in the way I would have liked to. I have been wanting to do this race since I first heard about it back in April. I decided that I would talk about it to my friends to kind of commit to doing it. I thought that if I said it vocally, it meant I would actually follow thru and do it. Signing up for your first race and plan on doing it by yourself can be a scary thing. And for me, it was. I kept coming up with excuses like I will wait til our next pay check to sign up, or after a minor muscle injury, I thought maybe it was a sign that I shouldn't do it and sign up for a one at a later date. Well, my arm healed up quicker than I thought and I decided that if i was really going to do this I had better sign up....duh, right? So this was my process of actually getting to the commitment level of signing up. It took awhile and I knew with the things I have been learning with my life transformation that if you want to do something, what is holding you back? Yourself! That is the only thing holding you back from anything.

Preparing for the race. Like I said, I did not prepare in a way that I wanted to. That was another reason why I was hesitant to sign up because I thought I had to be perfectly trained to do something like this. Yes, shedding some pounds and getting a healthier lifestyle is awesome, but I thought it had to look a certain way for me to show up at the morning of the race. And I learned several things with this thought. I will get into that more in detail as I go thru the race.

The way that the race was broke up was called rinse, ride, run, repeat. I thought this would be a great way to do my first race. For the swim, we were supposed to line up in order of time from fastest to slowest since we had to swim the pool in an s-curve fashion. Even though swimming is my strength, I did not know my time because I did not train...at all for swimming. As people were lining up I guessed my time and I stuck myself in the middle of a large group of men. I did not let this intimidate me. My first thought is why is there not more women up here with me. I don't know what number I was starting, but I think I was only the 2nd female to start the race. The 1st was 17 years old and probably on the swim team. Maybe I was thinking my body was only 17 and not 29. Haha! Anyway, the first swim (300 yards...not too bad) the only thing that made it difficult is we were packed in there like sardines based off of guessed times. The person in front of me was way slower and it was difficult to pass so we clogged up the line, which I'm sure happened to many people in the race. I think that is the only things with the first leg of swimming that maybe slowed me down....of course training I would have been stronger and faster, but I felt pretty good.

On to the bike. (5.5 miles) My transition was slower than expected....some people ran out without shoes on and did the biking in their bare feet....now thinking about it, that may have worked for me, but I have never tried it before, and I wasn't about to try it during the race. So drying my feet and getting my socks on shoes on took longer than I wanted. That will be something I will figure out and improve. Maybe not wearing socks would work...I don't know. Anyway, the bike felt good. I knew the trail because I drove it the night before so I knew what to expect. At this point, my calves were on fire but only because they were still really sore from the Bear Lake ride. Also, my knee was sore as well. But I kept going as fast as I could. During the ride I had several males pass me on these real fancy bikes. My first thought is man, James is not going to like the fact that eventually I will want to buy a nicer, smoother, more expensive bike. Haha! Even though I went as hard as I could, I am still learning how to use the gears on my bike. This will be another area that I get to learn about and get a better feel for my bike. I felt great the first leg of my biking.

Now for the run (1.55 miles) I knew this was going to be the hardest part for me because I have always had the mentality that I hated to run. Not going to lie, I do. But as I was racing and at times I felt like my run was as fast as my walk, I just kept going. My calves at this point were screaming and I thought maybe I should just do the mini-sprint and be done. That is just going thru the course once, instead of twice. Then I changed my attitude and I became grateful that I could do such a thing. I thought I am going to finish the race that I signed up for and do the best Shayna can do. It wasn't until the running that I had the first female pass me. She was 18, so I was okay with that. We had our legs marked with our ages on it so that's how I knew. I also had a 57 year old male pass me. He was cruising. I thought, how awesome that I get to be part of this culture and every year I can grow and get better as I age. Usually we think of the younger kids being fast because they are young and can......which to a point is true...but once again, what is holding you back from being faster? You! That's all!

After finishing the run, I got to run back to the pool and do it all over again. I couldn't feel my legs as my calves were so tight and on the verge of cramping. So I did the best I could in the pool trying to swim and stretch them out. This 300 yards seems much slower for me. Later I found out it was not much slower than my first round. Even though I was super tired and my legs were not 100%, I still did what I thought was my best. I got out and my transition the second time to the bike was much longer than the first.....probably by a minute. But it gave me more time to stretch out my legs. My bike time was almost exactly the same as the first, so that is good consistency.

My last run I felt like my stride was longer, but I must have walked to stretch out more than the first time because my time was about the same as well.

Guess what!?! I finished! And not only did I finish, I finished 1st place in my age group (25-29). I was totally surprised and shocked to walk away with a gold medal on my first race. I am excited to push myself more and learn how to improve all areas and transitions. I want to do other races, but it will be neat next year to do this race again and see how I improve since the layout isn't done like this in other races. I am grateful that I signed up and I did the race. It was a huge learning experience for me and also understanding what it takes to become a triathlete and what other things I can learn. I want to build up to do an Olympic triathlon. Once I improve my running, which I plan on doing throughout the winter months, I think I will be more excited to do a longer race.

As I type this, I am extremely sore and am getting more sore as the day goes on. Ha! It has been fun to talk to my kids about my race and explain to them what I did. They are so much fun and I am glad that I can teach them to set goals and learn how to show up for themselves in the events of life.