falls lake race report.

second year doing this early season race. second year i cursed myself (and mother nature) at the start. swore off triathlon and wished oh so dearly i was back in bed. a year ago temps were in the high 40s. it was COLD. cold enough that the 60 degree water felt awesome. this year the dopplar called for intense storms, hail, torrential down pours and oh yea, tornados. not only should we not have been outside, we should have been huddled in a closet with a week worth of water and canned goods. anyway.
turns out we got lucky. the winds were certainly gusty and quite ripping. but only spurts of rain and no thunder.

i am a scare-dy cat on the bike. i get frazzled easily and dont trust myself. something i'm working on this year. and this day was my worst nightmare. but on saturday morning i decided to buck up and stop being such a pansy. and as a friend of mine told me "fucking ride kari". haha (sorry if that offends you).

anyway - i triumphed on the swim. only mildly panicking for the first say 2-3 minutes. but unlike last year, i was able to at least keep moving forward while i controlled my heart rate and shallow breath. once i got going i felt so good. (WTF good on a swim, who am i ?) but i was moving well, and started passing the guys in the wave before me. my sighting needs work, but i navigated the chop pretty well. the swim HAD to be short as i was surely not setting a PR that day, but still moving in the right direction pace wise.

the bike. oh the bike (i'll skip the part where i couldnt get my wetsuit off and didnt recognize my bike...). so out on the course. i just wanted to start passing people. start racing. i wont lie and say i miraculously became this awesome tour rider. no way. but i did put my head down and rode. i was in aero when i could and sat up when it got too hairy. i think i spent about 60% of the time wiht one arm in areo and the other grabbing the handle bar. so i call that a win. i learned that singing dumb songs to myself actaully make me feel safer.. or maybe they just take my mind away from the task at hand. wanna know the song that got me thru being blown across the road? "if you're happy and you know it clap your hands". yep. say what you will. some of the sketchy parts i thought were sketchy last year didnt bother me so much this year. again. progress. i made up some time on the bike.

coming into T2 i was just so thankful that nothing went wrong, i rode OK and was ready for the run. however my legs were not. maybe i was so tense on the bike they were in over drive.. but i shuffled for a good bit (Too long!) on that run. finally i was like - enough! start running. ha! and i did. kind of. first place was pretty far ahead, but at the turnarounds i saw there were several girls coming fast! it was NOT a pretty 10k at all. but got the job done. ended up second. its early. and now i know i have some work ahead.

it was a good day out there (who knew!) and i was happy to be racing in my ETTT uniform for the first time. people on this team are so NICE and supportive. i really love it.

after the race we were walking back to transition and the skies opened up! yikes!



here is me and alysia getting our post race grub on.



some teammates... it was all we could round up - the others were smart enough to go home and get warm and dry!!