Lanikai Triathlon!

Well my first Triathlon of 2011 is out of the way! Forgot how much those things hurt. But what is more fun racing with all your friends in a beautiful location on the Windward side of Oahu??

 (I totally stole all these pictures off FB. Love it that people post these so I don't even have to bring a camera to events anymore! :)


The top men charging into the water at the start as the sun was coming up... awesome, huh?

Winds are down this week for like the first time this year... normally the ocean over here is a choppy mess (and I train in it all the time) but this weekend it was more like a lake. Again, these are the men. Women started 3 minutes back so I guess we did have a bit of chop as we caught the slower male swimmers...

Maybe you have witnessed a bit of fun bantering going on on Facebook this week... Rachel and I were ready to duke it out this morning... I love this picture. Ha!

Unfortunately a 500M swim (if it was that) doesn't give me much time to get a gap on anyone... don't be fooled by Rachel saying she is a crappy swimmer either. I got her by a little bit on the swim but not enough to offset her crazy fast transitions. As I started riding I saw a gal up ahead and thought, She looks like a fast rider... wonder who that is? And ahem, it was Rachel. I was like, WHAT? How is she ahead of me already? I'm screwed. Lol.

So the bike basically went like this: Pass Rachel. Get passed by Rachel. Pass Rachel. Get passed by Rachel. Pass Rachel. Get passed by Rachel. Pass Rachel... It was awesome. We totally kept each other from getting complacent out there on the bike.

Bike finish photo... don't worry, I did not stand up the whole ride- I was just about to dismount after a speed bump that you don't see in this picture. Notice the smile. I was having fun out there on the bike. Too bad it wasn't 112 miles.

Also, notice the disc wheel! Ok, it's not really a disc- it's just a wheel cover. I got it on Friday. Rode it around for almost a minute yesterday afternoon. That whole don't try anything new in races? Whatever. I rode ~1 min faster this year than I did last year on that wheel. Yeee haw!

OK so running into T2 next to Rachel I figured my only hope at this point was if she were to tie her feet together. My goal just became to run as fast as I could, which turned out to be not very fast.

I tried though. I really did! I just didn't have any other gear other than comfortably hard, which wasn't exactly comfortable anyway. I knew I wasn't running that fast and I kept goading myself on to dig deeper and run faster but I just couldn't dig at all. I did find myself wishing I could just slow down a bit and run 20 miles though. Go figure.

Anyway, a gal I didn't know passed me with ~1/2 mile to go, and then just when I thought I had 3rd place all wrapped up, my good friend and training partner went charging by me just as we were running up a little hill in the deep sand (finish on the beach) and beat me by 1 second! Ha! It was funny too- as she ran by I was so surprised and impressed by her gutting it out like that that I just watched her go by and thought WOW! Way to go, Sandy! It never occurred to me to dig in and try to match her. I don't know that I could have anyway....

In the end, it was really fun this morning. Of course I wish I could have run faster, but interestingly, I'm not all that concerned about it. Maybe because I know that I have not done any type of training to prepare me for a fast 5K...