W/e race reports....

[rocknrollgirl]

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

[Tuckervill]

Congrats to you and your friend!

Karen

[Tri Girl]

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)

[rocknrollgirl]

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

She did so well. I am so proud!

[Wahine]

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!!

[dex]

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. ()

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.

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.)

[teigyr]

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

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

[KSH]

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

[colby]

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.

[salsabike]

See PNW Tri Novice thread for race report!

Thanks for the pic info, Colby.