Some final thoughts on the race

1. I had three fears going into the race. Going commando, having massive high beams throughout the race, and being super stinky from having my deodorant wash off in the pool. Silly...maybe... As it turns out I didn't care about any of those three while I was racing...
2. It is true, you really don't notice that you are wet when you jump on the bike.
3. There was a couple at the race - obviously the guy supporting his girlfriend and I think her parents were there too. They were one massive PDA-fest as she kept jumping up on him and it seemed like they were almost permanently in a lip lock before the race. Seriously, no one wants to see that...
4. If I were still 29 I would have come in 5th in my age group. Apparently the 30 - 34 category is pretty competitive, although I still think coming in 13th in my age group was a pretty nice showing for my first tri.
5. I have to give a massive kudos to the volunteers. One spent 7 hours on Saturday sweeping the shoulder of Hwy 817 so that we wouldn't be riding over all of the debris from the silage trucks on the road. That shoulder was amazingly clean. I don't know if anyone flatted or not, but I did see two vans from Ridley's Cycle driving up and down the highway ready to help people out. I also really appreciated the lady at the water stop who pushed me on and encouraged me. That was what I needed to hear at that moment.
6. I do need to work on my set up in transitions. I laid out all my stuff on my towel, but when I came out of the pool and wanted to dry my feet off before putting socks on it wasn't the most efficient system.
7. This race was a fantastic one to take away some of the intimidation of a triathlon. They really promoted the idea that anyone can do this. This was especially evident with one mother-daughter-granddaughter team as the 79 year old mom finished her first tri. That was pretty awe inspiring. I'm pretty sure that most of us were tearing up as she went to collect her age group award.

Yesterday I was reminded of why I don't run in the evenings...it is just too easy for me to procrastinate and not want to get it done. I hummed and hawed on the drive home and I debated on whether I should just take a rest day. In the end I figured I'd feel better if I got the run in. When I got home I immediately put the running clothes on and made it out the door for a 3 miler after I finished tending to the pup. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad either. This morning I got in 1250 slowww metres back at the Y.