KaiserTales

Alliterations aside, yesterday I competed in my third triathlon: The Danskin Women’s Triathlon.

Marissa and Asayo after the race

Three years ago, I was planning to sign up for the Danskin but missed the deadline. Instead, I did the Subaru Women’s Triathlon (and it was definitely more challenging than the Danskin would have been). Last year, Nate and I did the Chelanman Sprint Triathlon together. I had an infamous 17.5 minute transition while I waited for Nate to finish his swim so we could do the bike and the run together. But once he crawled out of the water (and believe me, he crawled), we kicked ass on the bike and the run, and we even crossed the finish line skipping and holding hands. Awwww…

This year, I was determined to do the Danskin, even if I didn’t really train. I’ve run regularly, I’ve been on some great long bike rides but I only got in the water for the first time last Tuesday. Amazingly enough, this was by far my easiest race. I was just out to enjoy myself, I was in no hurry and I didn’t freak myself out with an overbearing sense of competition. After all, isn’t this triathlon about women’s empowerment?

I saw TONS of tee-shirts with the saying, “The accomplishment is not that I finished, but that I started in the first place.” And darn if that wasn’t true for me yesterday. Sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning, I picked up a stomach virus. At first, I thought it might be food poisoning, cuz NOTHING wanted to stay in my system. But with two days of constant cramping and yesterday’s post-triathlon fever, we figured it couldn’t be food poisoning.

I'm smiling but my stomach kinda hurts

I was a bit queasy the morning of the race, and I visited the Honey Bucket more than usual. But once things got underway, the adrenaline took over and I was fine.

I finished in the dead middle of my class, which is about where I expected I’d be. And I’m not too sore today, except for my tummy which is still cramping. So yay! I did it! And it was fun!

Not to be taken too seriously

So the question remains: Do I want to do more?  For now, I will continue to do a sprint a year. Maybe I’ll graduate to an Olympic distance pretty soon, but I’m not as gung-ho as some of my family and friends

This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 10:44 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.