W/e race reports....

I took my friend Sherry to her first tri today. She races mt bikes with me on the same team. She basically rocks. She came down with her DH and two of her three little boys last night. We had a sleepover becuase the race start was at the crack of dawn. 4 am wake-up call.
Anyhoo, the swim has been her big block and over the last year she has worked relly hard to get that up to speed. I picked this race for the 1/4 mile swim. When we got there and I looked at the course I did a big ut-oh. there was no way it was a 1/4 mile. Way, way long. She was a trooper, and got through it and then rocked it out on the bike.
I placed first in my ag and she placed 5th in hers. The slide show tells the story. It was a great day......she is in the pink hammer tri top, I am in the black 2xu suit.

Oh and you could wear a wetsuit, but if you did, they would not let you place in your ag....strange.

http://s151.photobucket.com/albums/s...t=480e4f0b.pbw

Congrats to you and your friend!

Karen

A big congrats to your friend on her first tri!!! Congrats are in order for you, too, for placing first. Nicely done! :) I know that uh-oh feeling. For DH's first tri, the swim was supposed to be 300 yds. We got to the water and his jaw dropped. It was more like 750 or 800 (I have no idea how they got so far off). He freaked a little, but finished OK.

Is she hooked? (great slide show, btw)

Hook, line and sink'er!!! Bwahahahhhhhaaaaa.....my evil plan to create a tri-buddy worked!

She did so well. I am so proud!

Congrats to you and your friend!!! Well done... bringing another into the fold.

So what happened with all the Seattle Danskin Girls?! Inquiring minds want to know!!

This Seattle Danskin Girl finished. Slooooowly.

There were moments of hilarity. (No, really...at one point I started laughing so hard I forgot how to swim. No, I don't remember what I thought was so funny at the time. I had to actually watch someone swim by me to figure out how to get my body parts coordinated and working together again.) And some pretty intense pain--my knee blew up near the turnaround point of the ride.

I now have five blisters, a heat rash, and two chafe marks. (I started the day with two blisters and the heat rash after the logistical hassle that was Saturday.) And a finisher's medal. (:p)

It was fun, but I could have done without the pain and the subsequent slow down. I left my bike computer at home (because I'm kind of a dork like that) but I was flying through the first half of the bike and passing people constantly, but slowed waaaaay down coming into the turnaround when my knee decided it had simply had enough of that. Ah, well. It had been behaving almost a little too well the last couple of weeks, I should have suspected something like this. Heh. :rolleyes:

After that, I just walked almost the entire run course. I played a little bit of the here-to-there game (e.g. I'll run from this driveway to that tree), because running made the blisters on my feet hurt less, but my knee hurt a little more during those bits, so it was just like choosing what kind of pain I felt like having at any given moment.

During the "run", I was dubbed Miss Pink by more than a few people (pink skirt, pink race belt, pink hair). And I got lots of variations on, "Wow, Miss Pink has ridiculous legs." I have to assume they were talking about my muscles and not the swollen knee...heh.

My actual transitions went really well (except for forgetting to put my sunglasses on before the bike), but my spot was really far away from all of the start/finish areas. Looking at the times, it seems like I really dawdled, but the reality is that I just had really long distances to cover to get to and from my spot.

Despite all of that, it was easily as much, or more, fun than I hoped it would be. I wanna do it again. (Maybe with a little less knee fussiness.) :D

It was great! The water was a bit choppy and the weather alternated between almost stormy and then being unbearably hot but we all finished unscathed. It was pretty exciting because it was Salsa and Dex's first tri. The tri was HUGE, the transition area looked like a warehouse superstore filled with bikes. I think there were about 4300 participants :eek:

Will get to more detail later. I think it was a positive experience for us all :D

It was REAL COOL. I am so excited that Dex and I both finished our first tri! My results are about what I expected: need to keep working on swim efficiency; am very pleased with the bike leg and felt really strong during it; sure would like to run the run instead of walk it, after the stress fracture is completely healed.

It's impressive that Danskin can run 3,710 athletes through this tri as smoothly as they did. It damn well was choppy out there and the morning started with lightning and a little squall edge. It was annoyingly calm by the time we left.

We have some great pics from last night's pre-race dinner, and good pics from today. Will post them later...

By the way, we DID see the deaf-blind athlete on her run. And the final finisher is a woman currently undergoing cancer treatment. It really is quite amazing what people can do.

Rocknrollgirl, great stuff!

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/sports...date=8/17/2008

Hooray hooray hooray for all of you!!!! :D:p:D

Yippee!! I'm soooooooooooo proud of you girls!!:D:D:D

I can't wait to see some pics.

Dex - you are an Ironperson in the making, at that distance it's all about how much pain you can put up with and you proved today that you can put up with a lot.

Deena - you did the swim and you weren't in over your head so to speak!! I can't remember the exact name - Speedo John or something - whatever, I want you to seek him out and tell him how well you did. Well, only if you want too, but I would.

Teigyr - You did fantastic, great times on the run and the bike!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by salsabike

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/sports...date=8/17/2008

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Photo 10, the girl on the far right is a good friend of mine from here in the Gorge.

Oh and now that I scroll along, I see that she won.:D:D:D

Now you guys know what motivates me... about once a week I get my butt kicked by her.:cool:

I saw that she lived down in Oregon!!! The winner of the tri, that is. Doesn't she look relaxed and non-sweaty? There are some incredible athletes in the Gorge.

It was nice seeing all different levels at this tri. SO many people pushed beyond their normal boundaries and it was very inspiring.

Wow you guys, that is a huge race. I cannot even imagine. WOW!
Congrats on finishing you first race. That is terrific!!!!!

rocknrollgirl Congrats to you and your friend. I'm glad your evil plan to create a tri buddy worked. I've finally gotten a friend to do her first tri but she lives in Wisconsin, so no in-person training for us. Wah!
Good job to whomever was your photographer, they got a ton of good shots of you guys!


teigyr, salsabike, Dex Bravo! Especially on competing in such a large field! I love the photos from the Seattle paper, everyone looks so happy and excited! I can't wait to see your photos.

Photographer is my very handsome DH!!!! He does a great job.

I raced yesterday in the North East Maryland sprint triathlon. Couldn't have asked for nicer weather: mid 60's at start and still nicely cool for the bike and run. Unfortunately, the water was 0.8F too high to allow wetsuits.

It's amazing how comparing ourselves to others can make us dismiss our accomplishments. In yesterday's triathlon I finished 6/10AG and was a bit disappointed because I felt I had raced pretty well. However, when I compared myself to the overall standings instead I did rather well:

* Swim: 6/10AG, 67/178F
* T1: 4/10AG, 38/178F
* Bike: 5/10AG, 32/178F
* T2: 4/10AG, 46/178F
* Run: 8/10AG, 80/178F
* Total: 6/10AG, 45/178F

My OA results are something to be proud of: my bike was damn good (as others b!tched about how hard it was I thought it wasn't bad at all) and my run time was a triathlon run PB; I'm just in a very competitive AG!
It's kinda disappointing that my tri season is likely done.

I had a great first race! I really enjoyed the morning and tried to do my best. My swim was good - I wasn't freaked out and I had a better time than planned. My bike was awesome and I exceeded my goals there too. My run was disappointing, about 2 minutes slower than I had hoped, but I was at my max and couldn't have gone any faster. The transition area was a long way from the swim so it was tough to be any faster on T1, but I missed my spot in T2 and had to back track which cost me about 30 seconds. I loved the bike - I passed 29 women and a lot of men who had started in a wave 10 minutes earlier. What a rush!! If had met my transition and run goals, I would have placed but was it was I was extremely giddy to do as well as I did. Yahoo - I wanna do another!!

(Interesting to note, there was a 54% increase in participants this year. My overall time would have given me a first place in my age group by 7 minutes! last year. The 1st and 2nd place women in my AG were amazingly fast and actually came in 4th and 9th overall and were 16-18 minutes faster than me - yikes!)

Swim - 17:13 - 5/11 AG - 55/113 overall
T1 - 3:01 - 6/11 AG - 73/113
Bike - 38:18 - 3/11 AG - 16/113
T2 - 1:49 - 6/11 AG - 88/113
Run - 29:45 - 7/11 AG - 77/113

Overall: 1:30:04 - 4/11 AG - 55/113

I have pictures on my blog.

You girls RAWK !!http://cache.hyves-static.net/images...y_headbang.gif

Wow -- everyone raced and everyone did really great this weekend! Congrats to everyone!

Here's my Danskin... the big report is coming from Salsabike later, so I'll keep this brief. Our swim was actually 1/2 mile, so longer than the avg sprint. When I looked at it on Saturday afternoon, there were white caps and it looked about 2 miles long!:eek:

OVERALL: 01:33:18 (638/3710) (Age 109/427)
SWIM: 18:01 (614/3710) (Age
T1: :eek: 06:57 (will explain below... ha!)
BIKE: 35:06 (240/3710) Avg 20.5 mph
T2: 3:06
RUN: 30:07 (928/3710) Avg 9:43.

So... I, too, was way out in the boonies going from swim to bike (not quite as far as DEX was, though!). I decided to put on sunscreen (safety first!) it had been stormy until then. Then I proceeded to sit down right on the tube while I cleaned all the grass off my feet and put on my shoes. I stood up, and realized my butt was COVERED in nice bright white sunscreen! There went another two minutes -- can't look like that going out on the ride!:p

After that things went better for me. I was happy with the ride, and happy with the run. I've not done under 10 minute miles DURING a triathlon before, so I was actually quite happy! Sang "99 bottles of beer on the wall" to entertain myself and keep going... the goal was not to walk, and except for the two water stops and the stop at the TOP of the hill to catch my breath for 10-15 seconds, I ran it all. Yes, I ran the entire hill! YAY! Oh.. and biggest of all -- made it through the entire thing without having to stop and use the Honeybucket!

Had great fun having dinner with the other TE participants at Ivar's on Lake Union on Saturday night. Sounds like everyone had fun and did very well!

Great job, ladies! It's so exciting to think about how many of us were going through our own races all at the same time.

Wow Jes, you are in a big age group! I guess I better get faster if I want to compete as I get older... next year I make the jump to 30-34, which has even more competitors than 25-29. It's funny that turning 30 to me means "I move up an age group and compete with different people" not some major frightening milestone. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by colby

...next year I make the jump to 30-34, which has even more competitors than 25-29. It's funny that turning 30 to me means "I move up an age group and compete with different people" not some major frightening milestone. ;)

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Then you'll be in my age group. Though this year that wouldn't have gotten you any closer to anything in transition. Oh, except the "Athlete Entrance". I was pretty close to that...which meant that I didn't have to walk as far to get to my stuff before and after the race. Score! :p

Dex (who was in the second to last row of section H, which was bizarrely *behind* sections I and J)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dex

Then you'll be in my age group. Though this year that wouldn't have gotten you any closer to anything in transition. Oh, except the "Athlete Entrance". I was pretty close to that...which meant that I didn't have to walk as far to get to my stuff before and after the race. Score! :p

Dex (who was in the second to last row of section H, which was bizarrely *behind* sections I and J)

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Well, I guess I was wondering who got so lucky as to be in row H, slightly worse than row I, and now I know... it'll be me. :p I did have my stuff in I1 though, which was practically H4, so I suppose I got some practice being ALMOST H.

Way to find the silver lining, though. Close to the entrance is something. ;)

Looks fun! Congratulations to both of you! Fun slide show! Thanks for sharing. :)

For the Danskin girls, I looked up last year's pictures, and it took 4 days from the race day to post the pictures. Here's to hoping this year's are faster. :)

See PNW Tri Novice thread for race report!

Thanks for the pic info, Colby.