Subaru Women's Triathlon!

Last weekend I competed in the Subaru Women's Triathalon Series, held in Naperville IL. It was a BLAST as ususal :) some greats and some downs but overall way fun!!

My parents who are my biggest fans and always loyal supporters journeyed accross the state to just to help me get to my tri and watch me run my second tri! Thanks Mom and Dad!!

On Friday night we all meet out at Heather's for supper and chillin with my nephew for a while before we decided to try and load up my stuff and head out. If you don't remember Friday night it stormed ALLL night and we ended up loading my bike on the back of my parents van in pouring down rain, but my dad was in great spirits and didn't even complain to much. He just said "couldn't you have picked better weather kid?" but he was a good spirit to have around.

After loading up various gear in the pouring down rain we headed towards Davenport and Naperville IL. However with the rain it made driving conditions not so great, slower than normal travel, and a car ride that seemed to go on for forever!!! My mom had decided to take this weird route to Naperville which included taking us thru a senic route down hwy 92 thru moline while we were looking for a hotel, which again seemed to never happen.

We eventually made it to Geneseo, IL. As were pulling into town my dad goes "So help me if there is a God there will be a Super 8 in this town" I laughed, but the whole time we were in the car I was praying for a hotel, some place safe and just perfect for us, and sure enough we turned the coner and there it stood, a super 8 the light in the distance, by this time, it was almost midnight, as we didn't even leave Iowa City until close till 10 because of rain and such, as we pulled up into the drive way it looked awfully full, I was still praying there would be a room. and sure enough, God provided for us, the perfect spot! There was only one room left in the entire hotel, and we just got it!! Thanks God!! It was perfect, one king sized bed and a pull out couch, ohh how great it was to be out of the rain in a room to sleep.

We left early saturday morning around 8ish, and headed off to Naperville, it was STILL RAINING!! I kept thinking are you kidding me? It's still raining, oh brother! We eventually made it to Naperville and found the triathlon Multi Sport Expo event with out to much trouble, but again, the expo was OUTSIDE and it was STILL raining!!

But none the less, I got out, and picked up my packet, and then went on to pick up my goodie bag and my tank top. I also experienced my favorite part of the triathlon experience, the EXPO, where you get all sorts of good free goodies!! We got all sorts of freebies at this expo, including luna bars, waterbottles, race belts, magnets, chip clips, lip balm, all sorts of good stuff!

On Sunday the morning started off early getting up at 4 AM, to make it down to the transition area before it closed at 6:45. I got to the transition area around 5:30 after slurping down some oatmeal in the hotel room that I didnt' have a spoon for, and laoding up all my gear and other stuff into the van. At the transition site, I wasn't to nervous, At this triatlon you had to rack your bike according to wave number, thankfully for getting up early I found a SWEET spot to rack my bike on the end of a rack right next to the run out, unfornitually it was a jog to the bike start, and yes you have to walk your bike to the bike start, but it was also next to the place where we ran in from the swim, so all and all, it was a pretty good location to be in!

I was reviewing my goals for this triathlon in my head setting up my gear, I mainly had three goals, to beat my previous time, to have better transitions times than the last tri I did, and to have fun! After setting up and walking to where we come in for the swim, I wasn't so sure that the transition time was going to be beat, I was going to have to be pretty fast transitioning on the first transition to beat it becuase it was a good .1 to .2 mile jog from the swim to the transition area.. way farther than the last triathlon I did.

Anyway, so I set up my gear, laid everything out perfectly, had a game plan in my head, was ready to go.. I meet some girls in the transition that were next to me in my wave, that set their bikes up next to mine, we chatted about various things for quite sometime before we had to head off to the swim area and the transition area was closed. Before the transtion area closed, we all laughed as we lubed up with body glide, man that stuff is amazzzzing!! It keeps you from chaffing or having your suit rub the wrong way, etc, especially since it's what you will be wearing the rest of the day.

At 7:00AM we were sitting on the beach talking, I was talking to a girl from Chicago who is currently getting her PhD, it was pretty cool, it was her first triathlon, all was going well, we were both in wave number 25 so our race wouldnt' start until 8:36! I took a quick warm up swim before things got underway, which lead my watch to dieing!! Oh NO!! Thankfully I had another one in the car if I could only find my parents. Shortly after I found my dad, who ran back to the car for me and got my other watch, thanks again dad! Whew okay back to chilling, so we finally get called to line up, I am towards the front of the line which is good since i am a fairly strong swimmer.

The horn goes off and we are offically off!! The swim, was offically a mess!! You had to swim a W pattern, which lead to being 6 lengths of this pool, however at the shallow end of the pool you almost couldn't swim and had to run around the buoys just to get around them, therefore never getting a great swim in before you had to switch directions or get up and run.. The other bad part of this swim, was the lanes weren't wide enough, I felt like i kept hitting people ahead of me that were to slow, but were staying close to the lane line to be able to hold on to it when needed or running into other waves ahead of me that were just slower and it was pretty frustrating swim, but I made it thru, I looked at my watch halfway thru it said 6 minutes, I thought, ahh I got plenty of time, I kept swimming, but my watch stayed at 6 minutes, it died too!! I got out of the swim, not sure how my swim time was but went on jogging up the small hill and down the long run to the transition area.

I got out of transition to be what I thought was a fairly decent speed, and off on to the bike, my motto during hte bike was start strong, finish strong, and my goal was to keep my MPH above 15. I needed to be 15 or more to beat my previous bike time. The bike was a two lap course, it wasn't to bad on the first lap but by the time I got out to the second loop the wind had picked up, and my second lap time surely had to been a little slower, but I was still passing people. On the first lap I passed the girl who i had been sitting with on the beach who I knew was a strong swimmer, but it felt good to pass someone who I knew I started with. As I passed, I cheered others on, saying good job, keep it up, not that much farther, and remembered to thank all those volunteers who got up super early on a weekend so that I could have a race.

I saw my mom on the first and the second lap.. My parents who most definitly are my biggest fans are definitly NOT good photographers! I saw my dad on the second lap coming in.. I kept yelling dad dad dad to get his attention, he missed the photo on the bike as I zoomed by him, I had to laugh, I saw my mom sitting on the coner where I turned and as I was having fun, I said hey mom :) Pulling into transtion, I had no idea how my times were, but was determined to get out there and finish it up.

I had driven the run course and I didn't think it looked to hilly but it had some slow inclines that I wasn't quite ready for. But I pushed thru, deteremed to run when I could and walk when I couldn't, I walked thru all the water breaks pouring water down my back to cool me off, and they had volunteers on the race course yelling out your name and Go! you can do it! I heard several people yell keep it up Leslie (we had our names on our numbers, pretty cool), it made me want to keep going. They were great!

By the time I hit mile two the same girl I sat with on the beach and passed on the bike, came back to run with me for a while on the run, she actually came along side and said want to run together for a while, I said sure, running with her for a while, which was cool, till she got a little faster and took off :) but all was well. I was deteremened to run the last mile of the race, where all the fans where, and I accomplished that! I saw my dad, who totally again missed the photo, but I laughed as I talked to them running by them, then my mom tried to get another photo as we ran thru the park, and I just had to laugh, as I came up, I said.. hey mom the camera is still off! the volunteer next to her laughed as well and I continued on.

The finish line was approaching and all these people were going your almost there, way to go Leslie, yay Leslie, it was such a cool experience, as I crossed the finish line I heard the event speaker say and here is Leslie Stodden from North Liberty Iowa. how cool is that!! They handed up a towel that had been drenched in ice water, thank you!! and then we got a medal! yay!! I had finished, no idea on my time, but thought i did an okay day. I then went to the medical tent and asked for some ice, my knee was on fire!!

The last mile was run on brick and it's kind of uneven, it made my knee burn! but after a little icing it was all good. I came out of the event with ice wrapped on me, my mom was like.. oh my are you okay? I was like yeah I am good! We finihsed the day with some relax at the post party! and some free stretching provided by a physical therapy place, they were heaven sent!

Before we left town I went on to check my times, I was plesently surprised, I beat my previous tri time by more than 16 minutes!! and this was a LONGER course!!

My swim time wasn't horrible, 14:02, my transition 1 time was faster than my previous one!! :) 4:39, my bike was 48:38 my second transition was faster too!! 2:30 and my run time, the most impressive improvement, i cut off almost 7 minutes!! it was 43:12 Which means I completed this tri in 1 hour 52 minutes and 59 seconds! :)

So I cut off a
1:40 on the swim
:32 on the first transition
4:10 on the bike
2:28 on the second transition
7:22 on the run!!

Which means it was a great race day, all my goals accomplished!!! I can't wait for race day next weekend, here we go Danskin!!

p.s. I'll post some more pictures when the actual race photos get on the web! :)