A person fails to reach their potential when they fail to pay the price.

I will apologize in advance for the long post, but its been over a week and two pretty significant training days have gone by, so I want to fill you in (or remind myself years from now)...

A few weekends ago was the Shelbyville Triathlon- Olympic Distance and my first real triathlon I have ever done. To be honest, I lost sleep over this thing. I was terrified about what to wear, how to change in the transitions, what if I ran into someone else's bike coming out of the transition, what if I wore a wetsuit and hated it 200 yards in? I had a million questions (just ask Brian, Curtis, and Mickey). In any case, Jackie, Sarah and I showed up there as TOTAL amatuers sporting our swim suits and bike shorts certain we would mess up somewhere and be the laughing stock of the sport.

So we were told we should swim in wetsuits. The water was a mildly cold (for us swimmers anyways) 70 degrees and EVERYONE had on wetsuits, but I had tested the wetsuit theory the night before and there was no way that was going to work for me. I dont get how constricting your shoulders makes for a more efficient swim. So I opted for my speedo swim suit- pretty standard and I couldnt go wrong. The water was a putrid, standing, sess pool of a pond, cleverly nicknamed "Clear Creek"- we all got a laugh out of that before the start. The guys started 5 minutes before us girls which was rough on Sarah and I because swimming is our strength and we had to pass a lot of those guys on the way out. But we did, we made the turn around the buoy (all of this was head up because you could see NOTHING underwater), and made it back. The whole thing lasted about 22 minutes.

Sarah and I were the first and second women out of the water and not far behind the male leaders either, so that was encouraging! After that, I just pulled on some bike shorts, kept my swim suit on (total rookie, i know), and jumped on my bike. It was painless really and I didnt have the slowest transition time either! So onto the bike, onto a basically flat course, which was awesome for me- I love the flat courses. I averaged 19.6 mph on the course which was far better than I would have dreamed!

Then I had to run. OUCH. This is where I have some work to do. My run splits actually werent that bad (I held just over 8 min miles), but it was painful and my heart rate was really high. There has to be a better way to get my heart rate down without walking- I guess it just takes more training, and running slower- who knows. So I finished pretty strong and ended up third overall for the females- 2 girls passed me during the run, which was fine by me- I was just happy people werent laughing at me!

After I was finished and we were leaving, I called my mom, who said congrats and then asked a pretty poignant question, "What would you have done differently?" Now that I can think about it, I think this is my best answer:

I wouldnt try to take off my bike shoes before I got to my transition carrell thing

I would wear more sunscreen (I didnt think we would get sun that early and I was burnt!)

I might try a few more tricks in the transition area to save me a few seconds, but I dont know what those tricks are

I need to drink more water

For a race like that, as short as it was... I think I did fine and I was pertty happy with it- I would welcome any advice anyone else has!