Fontana Olympic Triathlon

It appears that I had started my Fontana recap and never finished it, oops.  But now I have some fun pictures to add in, so here goes the recap.

Body Marking

I did it! I completed my first Olympic distance triathlon, and I actually felt pretty great the whole time.  Overall, this was the best I've ever felt in a triathlon (I've done 2 others) even though this one was significantly longer.

The day started out with Dixie and Britten meeting me at my apartment around 5am, we loaded up Britten and my bikes, then drove over to Fontana.We saw Matt as we checked in, and Jacky, Jen, Jen, and Kitty before the race.  We took a couple pictures in our wonderful wetsuits, and before we knew it the race was starting.  I was in wave 1, the beach was a little bit rocky, so I took my time walking into the water and let some rambunctious athletes go ahead.  Once in the water I swam about 10 strokes before I had to do the usual "pep talk" fighting off negativity.  I told myself, relax, you have swam much further than this distance, and you prepared well.  After a few more strokes I was able to contain myself.  I kept close to the buoy line, and had a great swim.  The course was short (probably closer to 3/4 mile), but I swam it in 17:42, which is pretty close to my sprint triathlon (1/2 mile) swim time!  As I exited the water I was a little disoriented and thought that I had lost my top as I unzipped my wetsuit, hence this picture...

The bike went well.  I didn't get my Garmin on my wrist before I took off, so I tried to fumble with that a bit, but gave up and just kept it in my front bike pouch.  The bike course had some nice rolling hills.  A couple girls and I had biked the course a few weeks earlier apart from Lake Shore Drive because we missed the slight right turn.  Lake Shore was a bit more hilly than I expected, but I enjoyed getting going downhill.

T2 went pretty well, I took a few steps and remembered that I had left my Garmin on my bike, so I went back and grabbed it.  My T2 time was 44 seconds, not too shabby!  The first loop was a little intimidating.  Up a hill, down a hill, up a super hill, turn around, then do it again. I did run up the big hill and received a nice compliment from a fellow running female commenting on how she didn't know how I was still running up the hill, good work.  At the top I could tell that I was electrolyte depleted so I opted to fill my one water bottle with Gatorade. The second loop didn't seem as bad because I knew what I had ahead of me.  I also had some great friends cheering for me (Jen W, Kitty, and Brad). I knew what the expect (the mother of any hills I've ever run), so I cranked it out and ran that hill!  Before the turn around I dropped off my water bottle to the aid station and the nice guy filled it with lemon lime Gatorade for me.  The rest was downhill (mostly).  I crossed the finish line at 2:58:29.  30 minutes faster than my loosely projected completion time. Olympic triathlon #1 is in the books!

WNB showing off the bling!

 And I finished 3rd in my age group!