Sunday Sunday Sunday!!

5 weeks and 3 days after surgery, I can proudly say that I am yet again...

....a triathlete!!


And not just a triathlete who can bike, swim, and walk a run. I was a triathlete who swam, biked, and even managed to do 1 min walk/1 min run intervals! Oh yes, this stiff knee was RUNNING!!! Holy cow, I am still shocked and slap happy just at the memory of it. No, it wasn't easy. No, at the time, running wasn't fun. But I SO did it. Boo-yah!

The race was actually a rehearsal put on by my team up in Boulder. It was incredibly well done, and for all intents and purposes, it was a race....just minus the timing mats. I switched at the last minute to wave 3, which was the 5430 Sprint Course. 800 meter swim, 17.3 mile bike, 3.1 mile run. I figured that since I have only swam once in 5 weeks, biked twice (17 miles total for both rides combined), and hadn't run in 12 weeks, that perhaps the Olympic distance wasn't the smartest move on the planet.


So, I started out in the swim and was shocked when two girls went zooming past me. What happened to my beautiful speed? Well, it's gone. But I hung in there and I'm pretty sure that only 1 other person got past me....I came out of the water with two women in front of me, and maybe one off in the distance. (Maybe 50 in the wave?) I walked to my bike, still scared to run, and wanting to conserve as much as possible. I was devastated when I got out of the water and looked down at my watch and saw 19 minutes. 19 minutes!!! I am not that slow, even on a bad day, so either I swam circles around the buoys, or the course was long.....that swim should have had me in the middle of the pack. Not 4th.

Anyway, since it wasn't a race, I answered questions about my knee in transition. Some of my ex-poolmates were wondering how I was doing...very cute. And then a guy from work yelled over from the fence and I was shocked...he was pre-riding the Boulder Peak course and somehow recognized me as I was trying to get out of my wetsuit! Anyway, he was like, "how's the knee?" Ugh!! We'll see.....

Off I went on the bike. I was out of breath and tired. Shocker! But I picked off the girls within reach and then closed the gap on the rest of them. It was a false flat to the highway, and I was struggling to go 14 mph. It was so frustrating! Every time I put the bike into a harder gear, I'd feel pressure behind the kneecap, get scared, and then shift down. I stopped at every stoplight like a good citizen. I played tag with a few women who weren't good citizens. And then when I got on the highway, I managed to pull away from the rest of them. The road back to the Reservoir was a gorgeous, quiet country road that was all downhill. It was absolute heaven and my biker dream....it was just too bad I was too weak to have a good first part of the course. I think I averaged 21 mph for the last 10 miles of the course. Not a person in sight. I loved it!


I came into transition with not a bike in sight. Well, there were 2 over in the Olympic duathlon side, but I was the first in my Sprint section. Woohoo! I grabbed my stuff and ran out, smiling because I was *running.* Don't get me wrong, I was practically moving, but it technically counted as running.

I quickly learned that running for longer than a minute created a little pressure and discomfort in back of my leg, so I forced myself to stick to the 1 min/1 min interval. It worked well for me, as I didn't get stiff until 10 seconds until the end of my run interval! I will admit, I ran about 3 minutes at the end to get to the finish line. I didn't Sprint it in. I just kept it slow and steady and smiled as Coach announced my name with her loudspeaker and congratulated me. I was ALL smiles.


I am not a cripple!!!

I WILL one day be able to run again. Better than I ran yesterday.

I LOVE being back in action. Love it. Adore it. Just thinking about it was invigorating. Yes, I was slower than you-know-what (even with that stellar second half course, I was still a good 10 minutes off a decent time for that bike course). YES, I was racing against women who'd never raced before, so it wasn't a fair comparison. But I was just happy to be there. I *love* this sport. I *love* my bike. I *love* being able to feel that runner's high again. Heck, even 4am wasn't so bad.

I'm back!

(And I am pleased to report that the knee is the only body part today that doesn't hurt......)

I'm now trying to decide when my next "real" race should be. I'm thinking September might be enough time to regain my run strength....gotta find some obscure race so I'll feel better about myself......