This morning I finished my second triathlon (yay me!). I had a rocky start: I hadn't settled my goggles, I hadn't taken a couple deep breaths, and it threw me off for a few laps. Once I got into my groove, though, it wasn't too bad. We did 17 lengths in the indoor pool, hopped out, walked outside and up a hill to the outdoor pool and did 15 more lengths. The battle occurred at the end of the 15 laps in the outdoor pool. The 'shallow' end was 4'6" deep, and the lip of the pool was a good foot or more above the water line. At 5'1" (on a good day), I had a real problem getting enough leverage to get out. I couldn't hop/jump/launch myself high enough out of the water to pull myself over the edge. I ended up hooking my leg over the float thingy, straddling it, and then kind of rolling out and onto the concrete. In the process, I scraped both knees and, I'm sure, looked like a beached whale. I limped off to the transition area, bruised and bloodied, but not giving up.
The bike ride was 13 miles, or twice around a 6.5 mile loop. I have no idea how they managed to find such a horrible route, but the first 4 miles was a looong, gradual uphill. Basically, it sucked. I survived both loops, and headed into the transition area. I had been drinking from my camelback (I got really dehydrated last time), but of course had to pee by the time I finished the bike ride. So, while I didn't have problems with dehydration again, I did have to stop for a potty break between the bike and run.
The run went a lot better this time than last. It was a bit longer (3.5 miles), but I managed to only walk on the uphills, and was able to run the entire last mile or so and was able to sprint a bit at the end. Last time I managed to speed up from a stagger/walk to a stagger/slow jog for the last little bit, but that was it. Oh yes, and my shins didn't bother me this time either.
Overall, despite the increased difficulty, I felt better physically and had a good time. I need to cut at least 30 minutes off my overall time if I want to be competitive, and I think I'll be working on that this winter. I'm getting an indoor trainer so I can keep riding my bike, and my parents are getting a treadmill, so I can keep running, and I will continue to go to the pool and swim laps once a week. So, by next spring when things start up again, I should be in a lot better shape and be able to do a lot better.
Scrape on left knee: angle is bad, so it doesn't look that bad, but it will definitely have some bruising.
Scrape on right knee- quite painful, and the one that bled. Angle of the picture makes is look smaller than it is. It's definitely big enough to hurt and make bending my knee painful.
On the way home, I stopped by a running store and bought a new pair of shoes and a running skirt. My current shoes just aren't doing it for me anymore, and the other day I realized that all my bike shorts have padding in them. I don't feel like running a half marathon in padded shorts, even the lighter padding in my triathlon shorts, but I do want something shorter than my capri-length running tights. Runner's World recently had an article about running skirts, and I've seen them around at different events, and I decided to give them a try. We'll see how it works out. I bought a Sugoi wrap skirt that has shorts under it. I've seen running skirts that don't have shorts under them, and I really don't want to know how that works: they're pretty short skirts. I'd be afraid of a breeze coming along. Part of why I picked the skirt I did is that it was the longest the store had. I haven't shown my pasty-white thighs in years, and don't really feel comfortable showing too much of them just yet.
After I got home, I spent the entire afternoon helping my BIL empty out the storage shed at the in-laws' place. He's PCSing to another state in a couple weeks and really needed to sort through all his stuff that's been stored for the last 10-15 years. This meant first emptying the entire shed and dividing everything up based on who it belonged to. We managed to reduce his pile (quite large) to just 5 or 6 boxes. SIL and her husband came and got all their stuff, which freed up a lot of space, and it looked like rain so we put the in-laws' things back in with out going through it, other than to try to group similar things together. The shed is so much emptier, and so much more usable now! It's amazing what can happen when you get rid of things (there is now a mountain of boxes of junk that have to be disposed of, but at least it's not in the shed anymore), and don't keep everything for years and years and years.
Anyway, between putting up sheet rock yesterday, doing the triathlon this morning, and then hauling boxes in and out and around all afternoon, I'm sore and don't expect to be able to move tomorrow.
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