AHHHH, FINALLY.

Mucho apologies for the massive delay in this totally awesome post. My house is disasterous - seriously. Beyond measure of not just messiness, but filthiness. And to top it off Lady is crying her lungs out as I tap the keyboard. She has created herself a new routine of crying for 15 minutes at 10:00 pm sharp. Every night. I hate new routines.
Back to the important stuff - Race re-cap PUMPKIN MAN Las Vegas 2010. 

Exhausted and Exhilarated.

Truth: I cried when Kday and I drove the route on the eve of the race. Petrified of the hills that the bike course would encompass tomorrow. What a seasoned pro he is, that Kday. He looked at me in the face and reminded me that this race isn't about winning. It's about doing hard things. Kday gave a pep talk better than any NFL football coach on a half time of a losing game. He coached me on techniques to hopefully make the 8% hill climb survivable. He said it wasn't considered failing if I had to stop and pull myself together before getting back on the bike. Wow he's good.

I prepped my T1 with a cloudiness of fatigue looming over me - thanks to Lady who refused to sleep unless in mine or Kday's arms the night before. I looked down at the beach of Lake Mead and the look of the freezing water temp sent a chill up my spine. I donned my stupendously huge swim cap (really people - you'd think the race directors who order the mandatory race caps must think that our heads are as big as the buoy's we're swimming around.... Notice in my pics that the cap is barely hanging on as I exited the swim because it's gigantic-ness about slipped right off mid swim. Nice) I got in the water - no time for warm up. I had been practicing visualization exercises for weeks now - of putting my face in the water and not panicking so much that my heart rate hit anaerobic before I even started stroking the swim. I told myself to swim as slow as possible. (Swimming is my fastest leg of the race, thanks to swim team a LONG time ago.... but I always go too hard too fast and blow up before I round the first buoy and then I'm too blown to survive the bike.) Go figure, I swam my PR! It was like I was swimming laps at the pool. No big deal. Gosh, I probably should have pushed a little harder even. But I paced well and maintained control of my breath the entire 1/2 mile and came out of the swim in 10th overall in the female 39 and under. 12:50 swim time.

Quite daring of me to post a full body pic of me in a wetsuit. Spare the judgment.

Super smooth T1 until I realized I hadn't adjusted my bike gear to match the hilly start. I tried to down shift and dropped my chain. Flustered and with a hand covered in chain grease, I finally got it back on. Hop on the bike, pedal two feet, dropped chain again. Now I'm panicked. I look around for Kday, hoping that by some miracle he could see me struggling and talk me through the problem. Nowhere in sight. I fight the chain back onto the sprocket and this time it's a "go." I climbed and climbed and climbed some more. Gradual at first and just kept getting steeper... but surprisingly loving every second of it. At mile 3 I spotted Kdays car sitting in the traffic jam of spectators all trying to get to the T2 before their racers. Head down, legs killing, I pumped it up. I had to get to him to tell him how strong I felt on the bike. I passed 2 skinny girls and a clydesdale.  He couldn't believe how happy I looked on the bike. I smiled, inside and out - then I kept peddling. Until I came upon an man who I plan to write an open letter to. This man inspired me to push harder and make some serious time up on the bike. But he didn't inspire in the way you're expecting.... rather - I got so sick of looking at his rear view that I couldn't take it any longer. So I left him in the dust. I climbed another 9 or 10 miles until I hit the hill from my nightmares. Here it was. Moment of truth. Did all those lonely intervals that I begrudgingly suffered through pay off? Fetch ya they did. I climbed that 8% sucker like it was nobodies business. In my humble opinion. I'm sure I was actually REALLY slow, but I didn't care. I rode it, non stop, no walking, no zig zagging my way up. Just point and shoot my way up that hill. A little prayer of gratitude to my Heavenly Father - for everything in my life that delivered me to that very moment and gratitude for my body and the beauty of the Earth. And a little prayer that my left hamstring and gastroc. wouldn't tear right off the bone - as they felt they were ready to fray to pieces. And before I could say amen - I was at the top, heading down hill into T2.

Again, full body shot in spandex.... not something I like to brag about. But at least I beat the chick behind me out of the swim!

With a numb right foot and a little TLC to my left leg that felt like it was about to tear in half, I hit the pavement. Surprisingly I felt quite spry and once my right leg regained sensation and my left hamstring went numb, I was in heaven. I ran my little heart out and people stared. I was running with an ear to ear grin on my face. I had survived. My goal was met, a tri that I felt strong in all 3 events. I counted my kills on the bike and run. I made every attempt to boost that number and it kept me motivated on the run. 25 total kills. Most of them probably passed me back, I don't care. At some point I passed 25 people. I've never passed more than 2 people in a race before. About 50 yards before the finish I met up with "Santa Fe," a guy that gave me props on the bike and kept me company on mile 8-11 on the bike. He wanted to finish together. I gave it as much as I could to maintain his sprint speed and then I almost puked. I told him to go ahead and finish strong. I needed to finish this on my own. I opted to cry instead of toss my cookies as I heard the final beep of my timing chip when I crossed the finish line.

You can see "Santa Fe" just ahead of me. 

I see these pics and realize my body isn't the "size" I wish it was. I know I don't look like a "triathlete" and a lot of people wouldn't define me as one. I don't even look like an athlete of any sort. But I had a moment of profound gratitude for my body during this race. My body can swim for 1 mile if I asked it to. It can ride a bike 20K and run 5K. Those are all things I never thought my body could ever do. I love that my body puts forth full effort in order to attempt to please me. I spent a lot of years hating my body for failing me as a "woman" by not being able to provide a successfull pregnancy. I've spent hours screaming at it in front of a mirror with hatred in my voice for the size and shape. But on Saturday I found a quiet moment during the run and I told my body thank you. Thank you for doing hard things. Thank you for trying your hardest - and despite the handicap I've given you by over endulging in food - thank you for being strong enough to complete a triathlon. Thank you for not being able to get knocked up, because I would have missed out on Layla. Thank you for never giving up on me and always, always taking care of me. Thank you heart for beating for me every second of every day. I will try to take better care of you in return for all your gifts. And someday - the outside will match the "athlete" on the inside. But for now, I'm happy.

And just for the record. My official finish time was 2:04. I was 17th out of 31 in the female 25-29 age group. My swim was 12:50, bike 1:16, and run 31:20. I was 10th fastest in the water from 39 and under women. I was 15th fastest in my age group on the run, a PR time for any of my tri runs. And if I had competed in the Athena category I would have taken 2nd place. I took 87th out of 158 overall women. I couldn't be happier with the results.