Maybe leaving late suits me!

So today was my first triathlon of the season. It's what I call a long sprint -- 750m swim/30k bike/7.5k run. I only signed up for it on Monday because it's extraordinarily difficult to plan around kids' soccer, husband's work, other commitments, other races and find triathlons that I can actually get to. Welland Ontario by default became my first of the season.

Now, I don't live near Welland. According to Google the drive should take 2 hours and 23 minutes if I take the 407, and about 2 1/2 hours if I take the 403/QEW. The race began at 8:30 this morning and the cutoff for getting your number was 8:15. Because it's a triathlon (3 events) you have to plan your little place out pretty carefully with everything you'll need for all three: bike, helmet, bike shoes, running shoes, water, nutrition, sunscreen, sunglasses, etc etc. Plus each triathlon is (obviously) set up very differently regarding where transition is relative to swim and all that. I like to get there quite early so I can see ahead of time where I'm swimming, the distance and path to transition and all that. I was planning to get up at 4:15, leave the house by 5:00 at the latest and get there by 7:30. That was the plan.

Thank God I got everything pretty much ready last night, because at 6:15 my husband woke me up, saying "why are you still here?" YIKES!!!! I jumped out of bed, said "OH NO!! There's no way I can even make it now!" And then I remembered our clocks are just a wee bit fast. I said, putting on my outfit that I'd thankfully laid out the night before: "Well, I'm going to try and make it."

My husband made me a tea with warm water while I threw on my clothes and ran for the car, three bananas in hand.

I'm not much of a speeder, rarely doing more than a few over the limit, but I pushed it a wee bit today. Got about 10 k from my house when I realized I had not taken my bottles pre-filled with water, oj and salt to bring on my bike ride. Nothing I can do about that now. Looked at my gas gauge. 1/4 tank. It might bring me there.

Decided to take the 407 after all to avoid the mess that always clogs up Oakville and to pick up the pace a bit. Oops! Got messed up by the sign for QEW (thinking QEW Niagara) and ended up getting onto the QEW right before Oakville! Thankfully at that time of the morning there was no traffic jam.

I'm heading down the QEW making pretty good time (oh, and by the way, I was unsure about the cutoff time to pick up your number. I thought it might have been 8) but the minutes are just clicking by. I noticed that my gas gauge was looking pretty low and sure enough, the gas light came on. I debated for a couple of exits whether I'd have enough to get there but figured I'd better pop into a gas station.

The gas station had these 15-packs of water on sale so I grabbed one of those and a bottle of OJ and headed back on the road. The gas station guy told me Welland was 20-30 minutes from there, depending how fast you drive. My clock said 7:45.

Raced toward St. Catherines, finally got on the 406 and raced toward Welland. Thankfully I'd printed out directions the night before too, or I'd have been totally lost. Got to Welland and eventually got the right exit, and then tried finding parking. Every lot was full! I turned around, looking, and almost parked at the hospital and then asked someone who told me of another spot around the corner.

Parked the car, ran to transition (not even knowing where it was!) then found I had to go inside this building to get my number before I could bring the bike in. I kicked off my sandals and ran barefoot into the arena, got my number, ran back to transition, got set up, pulled on my wetsuit up to my waist and headed to the river.

The swim was started time-trial fashion every couple of seconds, and people were already swimming when I got there. I found my spot and could finally calm down for a minute, but I was sweating like crazy! I was with some very nice women and we chatted while moving closer to the water. By the time I got close to the water I'd cooled down enough to pull on the wetsuit, which gave me just enough time to put my goggles on before entering and swimming. The cool water felt lovely!

I felt my swim was pretty good. I was cautious getting out of the water and going (quite far) to the transition area, because I've had some issues running out of the water lately with low blood sugar .... and I definitely had low blood sugar this morning. The distance from the swim to transition was substantial, so I walked a bit until I knew I was okay and then jogged the rest of the way.

Getting on the bike was fine, made sure I had my timing chip (If you read an earlier post, you'll know why I said that!) and set off on the bike. My speed seemed okay although when I got to the 5k mark I said "what? Only 5k?" I had the same reaction to the 10k. I had to work to stay positive. 1/3 down! I told myself. It was drizzly, which was not bad. Was passed by a few who looked very strong. Saw a couple of people at the side of the road changing tires, which made me wince. At turnaround I decided to really work hard the last half to keep up my speed, and I passed lots of people, especially in the last 5k. Only trouble was that I'd chosen not to wear bike shorts since they're impossible to run in, but the shorts I chose were bunching up around the bend in my hip joint, which became quite uncomfortable (esp since they're wet). But soldiered through. Spent about 2k riding inches from a cement truck, which was not fun.

Felt like I made pretty good time on the bike and did not have the least problem going from bike to run ... considering I've really not been doing bricks I was surprised how easy it was. Lost a little time in transition because I had a pebble in my shoe. Then the run. To be totally honest I had a hard time on the run. By the time I got to turnaround I felt like I'd been running far longer than 3.75k or whatever it was at that point. But I just concentrated on my breathing and forced myself to pass people. No one at all passed me till near the end when two separate men in their 30s passed me. I had to really push myself to the finish, and at the finish line just downed water and rested, leaning on the table for a couple of minutes. I felt ill, like I might throw up, but I knew it was my low blood sugar, so headed off in search of the food. As soon as I began eating I felt better. Walked around eating for a while and then allowed myself to sit, feeling pretty good about my race on the whole.

Eventually went and packed up my stuff at transition and then found out the results were up. I came in 5th in my age group, which is the best I've done yet. I was really hoping for a sub-two-hour time but I got an achingly close 2:00:35! Darned pebble. I'm choosing to look at the long run between swim and transition and telling myself I actually did sub 2 hours! A number of women came up to me to tell me how great I'd done on both the run and the cycling. My average cycling speed was 33 point something, which is not shabby in a triathlon. I did the run in 39 minutes, which is a 5.15-minute km -- not at all bad for me.

I will never intentionally show up seconds before a race again, but in this case it seemed to work okay for me! I will post a picture when I get one.

UPDATE -- according to posted results, I actually came in 4th. One step away from a medal!