Very nervous about my first ever Tri - and I'm just the bike part

[Possegal]

Sorry for the delay - there has been much napping today.

My alarm went off at 3:30 this morning. UGH. It would be a huge understatement to say I am not a morning person. I picked my niece up at her place at 4:30 and our swimmer at the metro at 5.

LOTS of people down there, for sure! And my nerves were still a mess. I had a few moments when trying to fall asleep the night before of just thinking - what have I done!?

We got down there, got situated, and then did a whole lot of waiting!!! The crowd of relay folks were all very nice though and so time went by quicker than I thought. I did feel for my niece since as the runner, she had the most waiting around to do. We joked that she'd normally be done with a marathon and home before she even got to run today. At one point she laughed noting that there would be people done before she even got to run and I just said to her - to which I will say I'm sorry. She just laughed.

Our swimmer (thanks again MDHS) was quite fast so he gave me a nice bit of a head start. I will admit that as he came up towards us at the end of his swim, my stomach did a million flips. It was still flipping around as I ran out of the transition area. But the minute I got on my bike, it felt fine. Much like when I played basketball, softball, track, swam - well, all the sports. I'd be a real mess until the game or meet started, then I was fine.

Now I joke that you can set your garmin by me - I am a very consistent 12 mph rider. No matter the terrain, no matter the distance. So I was figuring that for a 40K, I'd be out for 2 hrs. Hence my teasingly apologizing to my niece/team, frequently.

But I always forget to factor in that I have a rather sensitive competitive gene. In the end, I averaged 16 mph. I'm still kind of in shock by that. Luckily they were watching for me rather than figuring they still had another 30 minutes, so all was good. In the end, our team finished in 3 hrs 12 minutes. And it appears I took a lot longer for the transition than I think I should have. But dang my legs did not want to run after pedaling for 25 miles.

Looks like no penalties either, so clearly I was worrying more than I needed to.

Thank you one and all for the support and here is hoping next year I am able to do a Sprint tri all by myself.

The view from the transition area was quite lovely, even at the butt-crack of dawn.