A triathlete with a T-shirt to prove it

Last weekend I completed Morgan’s Little Miami Triathlon and it was a blast!! The weather was a little chilly, (40 degrees at 9am) but the sun was shinning and the fall trees were beautiful!! I was a little nervous about all the equipment I needed to remember for the race…

Canoe 6 miles: 1:10 min after potty break


We walked downed to the livery and chose a shiny red canoe. We didn’t realize until we were on the water that we grabbed a canoe with a patched hole on the bottom, but we paddled on pushing vivid images from “Titanic” to the back of our minds. The water was up a little bit; we only scraped the bottom once or twice. Around 27 minutes we saw the 3 mile marker, a good pace since I was hoping to finish around the 1 hour mark. I had no idea that my partner had taken a course in canoeing in college. She steered the boat and made all the tough, “to the right or left” decisions. Our legs were stiff and toes were numb after sitting/ freezing in the canoe for an hour. We got out of the boat changed our shoes, lost a layer of clothes, and hit the porta-potties before starting the 5.5 mile run


Run 5.5 miles: 50 minutes?

The first mile I felt like I was 100 years old with a serious case of peripheral neuropathy. It seemed like we got through the first mile really fast, but I checked my watch and we were at 9:28, so slow! I could finally feel my feet again and we picked up the pace. The running course had some uphill but was fairly easy. We ran on the Lebanon bike trail for awhile then you turn off into the woods and run up “killer hill.” Aptly named, this hill is steep and a little slick since it’s covered with all of the falling leaves. We basically had to walk up the hill because it’s narrow and people are trying to come down while were going up. Once we got back to the bike staging area I ate some strawberry Clif Bloks, YUM! After more wardrobe changes than Jane Lynch at the Emmy’s we were off!!

Bike 18 miles: 1 hour and 15 minutes

Confession: this is the first time I have ever biked on the road, and the first time I have ever biked 18 miles at once. Maybe Race day isn’t the best day for practicing!? My partner led the way through the course as we rode past beautiful old farm houses, more fall trees and huge cornfields. It was pretty windy I was glad I was wearing a long sleeve compression shirt. They had most of the miles marked on the course, as each sign approached we will do a celebratory count down. This is the first time I have raced with a partner and I really enjoyed the camaraderie, it made the time fly having some one to push me along. There was about 5 water stops along the course but I haven’t really mastered one handed riding and didn’t want to crash so I went without. Finally we got to the end of the 18 miles, hopped off our bikes and crossed the finish.

We ended with a time of 3:15 each. The times are added together to come up with a final score of 6:30:47 giving us a 13^th place finish out of 80 female teams. We were both a little disappointed in our time, hoping to finish at 3 hours. We have a lot of room for improvement. Our transition times were very slow, and next time we will probably do some training first! Our goal for next year is to finish in the top 5. Overall we had a blast, there was a nice buffet at the end of the race and we can’t wait to do the race again next year!!