I Survived!

The big race was today, and I somehow managed to survive! Actually, I'll stop being so mellow-dramatic (is that how you spell / use that phrase?). I had faith in myself all along, but I didn't expect to feel so good throughout the whole race. My time isn't as "good" as it was last year, but I did expect that... my focus has been on the New York City Marathon, not necessarily the Nathan's-Tempe Sprint Triathlon. So for me to multi-sport for a day and feel successful was more than I could have hoped for.

After a pep-talk with the bike this morning, (the girl who's bike was next mine thought I was talking to her when I said, "so we're going to have a good ride today, right?!") I felt confident that things would go smoothly. My swim was great - I managed to find some wide open spaces (isn't that a song?!) where I could get a few smooth strokes in without having to worry about getting kicked in the face. The bike was... well, the bike. I told myself to "pull it together" and rode hard. On to the run.

The run was the one place where I had my only minor mishap of the day: about three minutes into the my 5k I noticed that the braid on the right half of my head felt really loose. I reached back to see if I could tell what was happening and realized that it was completely undone! So my unexpected multi-sport of the weekend was me undoing one braid, pulling out a handful of bobbypins and praying that my tiny elastic band would hold a ponytail of some sort.

As I crossed the finish line I definitely felt like I had accomplished something for the day, and I couldn't have been happier to hear my mom, dad, and friend Lissette calling my name and cheering me through!