We survived the Jordanelle Triathlon! I was very nervous about the mile swim in open water. I was in the last wave of the Olympic distance swimmers, I stayed very wide to avoid the crowds, I think I probably was overly cautious and swam an extra half mile. We had to swim in a big triangle, and the Olympic distance had to do it twice. It is an odd feeling to not be able to know what is going on around you, you feel real isolated (especially when you are swimming 20ft off to the side of everyone else. After the first loop it seemed like I was all alone so I stayed more on course. I asked a kayaker as I started the 2nd round if I was the last Olympic swimmer and he said yes. I thought I was and I felt like the last loop was done all by myself. I didn't know if the sprinters were waiting for me to get in or what. Why was I out there by myself and this huge crowd on the shore? It felt like forever, and I was thinking I was so out of my league it was ridiculous, and I felt like they were saying over the bullhorn, "Sorry for the delay we have to wait for this PATHETICALLY SLOW Olympic swimmer before we can start the sprint division" As I swam to the shore the Sprinters were in the water waiting and I swam into there starting area, again, swimming too far off course ,they made a clearing for me to swim thru them. I was happy to be done, the embaressment of being so slow wasn't too bad because the crowd was very kind and friendly and treated me like a world class athelete and cheered me on. I ran thru the transition to Harold who was ready to bike, I thought for sure it was over an hour and twenty minutes and he said my time was 54 minutes. I was really happy to have been under an hour.
Harold took off and passed my 29 year old son and his buddy that left 15 minutes earlier and did his 25 mile bike in 1:21! I was super surprised to see him come back to the transition before the boys.
I took off for the10k and my heels hurt and it was very hot by this time, and trudged thru it. I worked hard, and had a time of 1:11, an average pace of 11:30, which was just fine with me.
Our total time on our garmin was 3:26:37, we will see how that compares to the the race results.
I really enjoyed it and want to do more. I need swimming lessons!
PS I forgot to mention, I was NOT the last person out of the water for the Olympic Distance, there was at least one man, and maybe more, I will have to check the results.
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