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So... I made it! :) And with adrenaline and help from a friend, I was able to run the entire 5K (albeit slowly), stopping twice to stretch a sore achilles' tendon but not walking. That was my goal. Here's the breakdown:
I went to the race with my friend F. (a fellow competitor) and his wife E. (our support team).
The swim part was INVIGORATING! 64 degree water, the bobbing yellow swim caps of the other beginners all around... I found myself sort of moseying through the salt water by breastroke or sidestroke much of the way, rather than doing the whole race in the freestyle as I had trained, I guess 'cause it was easier to see what was going on around me with my head out of the water! I came out of the water feeling PUMPED UP and invigorated, which I think will show in the photo E. snapped as I ran up the beach!
A quick barefoot walk/jog to the transition area, add socks-shoes-glasses-helmet, and I was off for the bike leg. Oops -left my gloves back in the transition zone. No worries; biked without them. Now I KNEW from my experience at the Tour de Houston that I am just wicked slow on a bike, compared to other people, no two ways about it. So I took my time, went at a nice slow-and-steady kind of pace, had time to enjoy the wildflowers along the side of the road. The twelve miles was a little tiring but fairly painless, except for the urgent need to pee that tormented me for the last several miles! Yikes! (Another competitor told me after the event that he had tried, unsuccessfully, to pee in his shorts at this point; the discomfort was so bad! That didn't quite seem an option to me anyway... glad I wasn't behind anyone who managed to pull it off...)
So, back in the transition zone, I racked my bike, traded the helmet for my sun hat, and scooted over to the porta-potties. My goodness the men must not even TRY to aim in conditions like these! That plus the one-piece swimsuit under my gear made this transition somewhat longer than the first... Finally I jogged out of the porta-potty, got the necessary clothing back on, and stepped over the timing mat into the run section.
Meanwhile, I hadn't drunk enough water during the bike ride because of the pressure on my bladder, so I was asking volunteers along the way, "HOW LONG UNTIL WATER? HOW LONG 'TIL WATER?" No-one knew, but a police officer saw my plight and gave me a fresh cold one right out of his car. Yes! Thank you, sir! So I drank almost half of that, which held me over to the aid stations which appeared eventually.
During the run I noticed that some of the people who had passed me on the bike ride were now walking. Now I was passing them, in my inching-along jog... we were clearly not the "elite" athletes of the pack by this point! More than halfway through the 5K there was a tournaround point at the end of a road (where I high-fived the two most animated volunteers on the whole course; thanks, guys!) -- on the way back from that turnaround I high-fived and cheered on a woman I had been leapfrogging on the bike.
Meanwhile, my friend F. had passed me early in the bike ride and had finished his race well before I did. A runner, F. came back AFTER his finish and ran in my last mile with me. It was great, because the runners were pretty far apart at this point, end part of the course wasn't as well-marked and I might have gone the wrong way. Plus he kept telling me about the canteloupe they had available after the finish... all in all, I was VERY pleased with my run, whatever the time was!
After lunch and milkshakes with F. and E., I came home to bathe and SLEEP.
The funny thing is this: before the race, when I went in to check the water temperature, I managed to cut my foot on a rock. A little smear of blood, but no pain to speak of: I decided to ignore it.
I can't WALK on that foot right now; am hobbling along the outside ridge only. It's a tiny puncture plus a scrape - as if someone has carved a one-inch exclamation point in the bottom of my foot, and it hurts! Will someone please 'splain to me how I did the whole race on THAT?
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