Every Mile A Memory: TO THE DARK SIDE: TRIDELTATHON 2018

I told ya'll I was going to the dark side. So , here we go. My first Triathlon, Trideltathon2018!

The weather was about as bad as you can get . Rainy ! Buckets of rain. Got up early that morning and then got ready and headed out as yet again, dumb construction on the roads would force me to go the long way. I got there and started setting up my transition area, laying out all my gear for the final 2 legs , and then I heard them announce that due to imment weather, they were cutting the bike down to 1 loop instead of 2. Great- That killed what momentum I was planning to really build. That means I had to go for it.

Once I had everything setup and planned out, I went ahead and headed into the aquatics center at UT to get my number marked and get my chip. Something so stupid as marking numbers on your arm I was so excited about. LOL!

As I was prepping to hit the water to get a feel for it and do a quick 100 to warm up, I ran into one of my friends. I was so excited that I actually had someone there to cheer for me . LOL!

Once I was warmed up, I hopped out and just relaxed. Knowing what was about to come. We lined up by swim time . I hopped in the 10-12 min group thinking I would be OK. It wasn't long before it was time to go. I dove in and within about 4 strokes, was caught and passed by the girl behind me. I settled into a decent little pace. What I was not prepared for was the turblence of the water and how it would slow me down. I never really checked my watch, but knew I was a LOT slower than what I thought I would be. They had it setup in 100M laps, so up and down through 5 different lanes for a total of 500M. It was tough. I finally at long last popped out of the pool and then went to check my time. My watch had gotten hit so I had no swim data, great.

Once out of the pool, we went out the doors into transition and the rain. The rain actually helped speed me up , because i just dried my feet and my hands, put on my helment, bike shoes, socks, put some food in my mouth, got a drink, and unracked the bike and headed out.

It was business time. The bike, the strong part for me. As soon as I jumped on , i geared up and was gone. I took it easy the first part because we had a set of tracks to run across and I didn't want to blow my tire. Once accross, i hamered it the last half of the loop. I managed to pass 20 people on the bike. I was rocking and rolling. In about 20 min I had made the loop , and was back to transition.

Once back to transition, I re-racked the bike, grabbed my water bottle off, and then put more food in my mouth, and then got my running gear on and headed out. I realized about this time that I had pushed to hard on the bike , but screw it. I just let my legs come to me. IT was about a mile and a half in that I really settled down. Before I knew it, I was headed home.

As I came up the hill, I am sure I had a look of damn am I glad this is over. I was soaked to the bone, and cold , and just wanted done. In the end , it was over.

I wound up finishing 2nd to DFL and only 3 min total off the podium for my first tri. Not a bad way to start things.