Live Long and Prosper........

It was a brilliant sunny (but windy!) day in Vulcan, Alberta for the 17th annual Bodyworks Tinman Triathlon. A large contingent from my Tri Swim group drove down to compete and to cheer on our fellow competitors!

The first swim heat started at 8:00AM and the first person from "our group" started at 10:45am with the last swimmer (me) not starting until 2:30pm!! This gave us hours of fun in the blistering Southern Alberta sun cheering everyone on and eating heaps of Nanamio Bars, pancakes and pirogies! mmmmmm.. pirogies!!

This is probably one of the best organized and most enjoyable races of the season here in Alberta. If it's not the wonderful volunteers and friendly family atmosphere, it's the Kids of Steel and the "Tinbits" race for the kids held after the main competitors are done. Seeing all the little kids tearing it up on the course is just too cute!!

First let me say I had a wonderful time and a pretty good race. It was great to share this day with friends from my Tri Swim group and everyone met or exceeded their own personal goals.

Here's the thing..... when I registered for this race waaay back in February (it sold out within a few hours) I put my 500m swim time as 10 min. For some reason, the organziers must have figured all the hard work in the pool I've done paid off and put me in the 2nd last heat of the day... the

Chilling just before my swim heat.

I started out WAY too fast, trying to keep up with the competitive swimmer beside me, methinks!!! LOL...and began to hyperventilate after only 150m. Crap..... at the wall I stood up... took some deep breathes and after about 20 sec began to swim at "Peter pace".

It took me another 100m or so before I began to settle down. It wasn't until the final 150 or so that I really began to "feel" the water. I hate sprints LOL Gimme a 2 km swim any day!!

Catching my breathe in T1 after a "difficult" swim...

I love the bike, the only thing I dislike about cycling is riding into the wind.... Today the West winds were gusting up to 40km/h and .. oh joy, we get to ride due West for the "out" section of the bike leg! Blah!

The best thing about riding "into" the wind is the turn around and having the beautiful wind on your back.. blowing you home!!

T2 incoming!!

Brick training.. yeah I need to do more brick training... seriously!! OMG, my legs were like jello..

LOL Crap my legs hurt!!

Limping out of T2... mmm jello

The run is my weakest leg (no pun intended!) due to my injuries, so my mantra is to just keep it "slow and steady". Short quick strides, mid foot strike, lean forward a bit.. relax and breathe.. yeah don't forget to breathe!

The best part of any race!

Such a wonderful day spent with good friends. I really enjoyed watching everyone's race and while I felt pretty drained starting so late (my heat didn't go until 2:50pm) because of the heat and sun I had a good race and hit a few PB 's (swim, transition times).

Sprints are fun and I'll definitely be back next year, but it's the long distance events that I'm really going to enjoy!!

Times:(my watch, not official)

500m | 15km | 5 km

Swim: 9:25
T1: ~ 2:00
Bike: 26:55
T2: ~ 1:40
Run: 30:00
Total: ~ 1:10:00