Mother Nature added her own round of challenges to Sunday's Danskin Triathlon: pouring, soaking rains and wind. But hey, when you start out swimming at 7:37 a.m., what's a little more water, right? That was my thought as I started the very cold swim. Silly little thought.
The rains started the night before, giving the course and transition area a good soaking. Instead of laying my gear on a towel, I laid everything on trash bags with more covering them up. Didn't help. After the swim, I sort of toweled off, threw on my very wet bike helmet (it had been out in the rain all night at the transition area which is required) and hit the road. I was on a fabulous rented bike, but because I was unfamiliar with the bike, and the course was so wet, I couldn't go as fast as I had wanted to. I saw several bad spills and several women, bloodied and bruised ride by. Coming back across the I-90 bridge on Lake Washington was one of the times Mother Nature unleashed her fury: soaking rains and sideway gusting winds. The cars heading West were also kicking up water on us. I thought, this really isn't very fun as I could hear and feel the water sloshing in both shoes. I toweled off again after the bike ride, grabbed my rain jacket, baseball hat and Ipod and took off for the run. At this point, I just wanted to be done and beat my time of 2 hours and 1 minute. I am proud to say that I ran the entire 5K with a sprint at the end to finish in under two hours. Final time: 1 hour 57 mins 44 seconds! I would have like to have had done better, but frankly, I'm just proud of actually showing up in that crappy weather. They say you need to train in any type of weather conditions because you never know what it'll be like on race day and I have never, ever, worked out in weather like that. Nor do I ever plan on doing it again, unless of course, it's like that for next year! Danskin 2008 goal: 1 hour 40 mins! (Editors note: there are no pics to accompany this because I didn't want my camera to get wet. But it still did as the water soaked through my bag and the camera case. No damage though!)
3 comments:
Sorry to hear about the horrible weather. We talked to Jai's cousin, who lives in Seattle, on that Sunday and he told us that it was pouring rain. I immediately thought of you Meg. That is great that you beat last years time! Congrats. To bad there are no pictures of our rain soaked athlete.
congratulations on finishing~
Wow Meg! You really are super woman!!! I am so impressed with that improved time in spite of the extra challenges (as if you need those when you are competing a triathlon!). Hugs to you! S
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