Amy's 5 Mile Lake Race Report!

I'll start by saying that I am NOT a natural athlete and never have been. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure that triathlons wouldn't just be work - without my team and my friends. What makes it fun is:

** getting cool poems in my e-mail the day before my race (Thanks, Ang),
** getting text messages at 4:30am wishing me luck (Thanks, Angela H.),
** getting 24 supportive comments on my Facebook page (yes! 24!),
** having someone to calm my nerves the night before when I realize I forgot to get nutrition for the race (Thanks, Kathy G),
** being saved with a bag of my favorite lemon Powerbar Gel Blasts minutes before the race (Thanks, Jackie),
** having 20 pictures taken of me in my wetsuit (Thanks, Kathy M.),
** having a friend to hold my shoes after walking down to the lake to save my tender feet from the rocks (Thanks, Teresa),
** having someone to start my Garmin so I can time myself and throw it to me as I come out of the water (Thanks, Tina),
** being cheered on every time I came around to the park (Thanks, Connie, Shaun, Karen N., Cathy and too many others to name!),
** having someone who just finished the race come run with me the last .25 mile just to encourage me to make a strong finish (Thanks, Joanna),
** being hugged by at least 8 people and having cups of water shoved at me before I've even processed that I'm done,
** being sought out for a hug by someone who was eating when I came in (Thanks, Diana) and
** the pride in my husband when he tells me how awesome I am (Thank you, Gareth).

You guys are all awesome. Raise the Bar and Raise the Hope are what made today so worth it for me.

After posing for entirely too many pictures in my wetsuit (lol) and taking a quick little swim to adjust to the water, we were off. I felt pretty good during the swim, actually. I was able to freestyle the whole time and felt I swam pretty strong for me. I didn't even get too off course! There were a couple of obligatory collisions, but nothing major and I came out of the water feeling pretty good. Turns out I was over a minute faster than the time I clocked just 3 days before at Lake Meridian!

I ran into transition and started a VERY slow transition. T1 needs major work! I still felt a bit dizzy as I was taking off my wetsuit and getting dressed for the bike ride, which slowed me down. I drank some water and ate a couple of my lemon gels and finally got out on the bike.

I hate the bike - LOL. And I really need to get over that. So I'll start now. I love the bike. It doesn't hurt my butt or my legs. Uphills are awesome. The bike is my friend. With all that said, I'm very slow on the bike. I need to do more bike training so I can be faster. As I was plodding along, so many positive people came along and yelled "Good Job" as they passed me. It is great to see how nice people there are! About a quarter of the way through, I got bored and started writing this race report in my head. I was thinking of all the cool people around me and how many of them I needed to thank. It helped make the time go by. Towards the end of the first loop, I got to the BIG hill. The hill is just long and keeps going up. I kept telling myself I could do it and I was almost there. I huffed and puffed, but I made it up! Woo Hoo! The reward was that the first loop was ending and I got to hear my teammates yelling "Go, Amy!!!" as I started the second loop and passed some runners finishing the last leg!

Starting the second loop, I was pretty much alone on the bike and continued to write my race report. About half way through the second loop, I had to stop and take a drink and a few Gel Blasts. I was losing steam and going even slower than I had at the beginning, plus the big hill was coming, so I needed some energy. Shortly after I got started again, my family went by me in the car and blew the horn in support - so awesome! Then came the hill and I was really tired. I thought about walking my bike up the hill. I decided to just keep riding in my granny gear until I just stopped, then I would walk the rest of the way. I kept writing my race report in my head and the next thing I knew, I was at the top! No walking - woo hoo! And finally, the bike was done to the cheering of my team!

In transition, I decided to just run in my bike shorts. I didn't want to take the time to change into my running pants and they were feeling pretty comfortable. I noticed my vision was a little off and I thought it was because I was wearing sunglasses and the weather had gotten very overcast. I left the sunglasses in transition and took off. T2 time was much, much better than T1. As I came out of the park and transition, I saw my husband and children waiting across the street cheering me on! Then Barrett started running towards me out into the road that was open to traffic. I almost freaked out! Gareth reached out and snagged him by the underarm - thank god no cars were coming. He did something similar at the West Seattle 5K, so I told Gareth he needed to hold Barrett when I was passing them in the future! I yelled, "love you!" and kept going.

I started running a bit and noticed my vision was still pretty blurry. It was very disconcerting and distracting. I did a walk/jog for a few minutes and noticed that the running wasn't nearly as bad as it felt during training - woo hoo. But the blurry vision thing was still really distracting. I alternated between the walk and the run for quite a while. At one point I was looking down the road and thought a runner was in front of me. I squinted really hard and realized it was a mailbox! Crap, my vision was a mess. I clocked the distance to the mailbox on my Garmin and it was only .15 miles - I couldn't tell the difference between a person and a mailbox in that short of a distance. But I didn't feel weak or dizzy, so I kept going. Diana and her husband were telling me later it sounded like I needed some electrolytes. Good lesson for the next race.

I finally felt everything kick in and ran the last .75 miles or so. As I came into the park, Joanna ran up next to me and asked how I was doing. She kept running around the track on the way to the finish line! She had only finished a few minutes before, so I couldn't believe she was running more!!! Crazy! She kept encouraging me - almost there, keep going! It was so awesome! I ran harder and harder and finished strong! And not even last! Pretty close, but not last - LOL.

After I ran across the finish line, I got bombarded with hugs! I hugged Joanna specifically and thanked her for running me in. My daughter ran up and hugged me too and I kissed my husband. It was so great. I couldn't believe I wasn't crying, though! I did my crying writing this report. I wasn't sure during the race I would want to do another one, but now that I'm done, I know I will. I can't believe I did it! I couldn't have come anywhere near doing this 3 months ago. I better drop some time off that bike ride by next year!