It’s been almost two weeks since the Raymond Triathlon, it’s about time I finally sat down and finished the recap! If you read recaps of previous triathlons like the 2012 Splash Pedal Gasp, 2012 Magrath Triathlon, and the 2014 Magrath Triathlon, you know that I have this terrible habit of signing up for a tri and then barely training. I still complete them, albeit pretty poorly! That was kind of the case with this one too. Whoops!

I signed up for the Raymond Triathlon a week before I had TyTy as a way to motivate myself to workout over the summer. I was smart though and signed up for the super sprint so that if I didn’t train I could still compete it without risking injury. Smart thinking considering I went into this with two swim workouts, three bike rides, and two runs under my belt. Ha ha ha!

When the morning finally came I was nervous, Real nervous. Especially for the swim, despite it being such a short distance. The swim is the moist difficult for me as I don’t have a background in swimming like many people who take on triathlons.

I got there way to early and wound up spending  a couple of hours at the pool watching the other competitors swim. When it was finally time to line up to get our chips I was surprised to see that I was the only adult female getting in line for the Super Sprint. It was mainly teens and older children! What?! In the end, there were only 21 competitors in this category, eight of whom were over 18! Ha ha!

SWIM 250m

The swim is nice and short, 10 lengths of the pool. When I got in line to start, my lane buddy was a cute little 10 year old who told me he swam 1000m the other day to prepare for the race. We both got into the lane and all I could think was “I can’t get beat by a little kid.” This was GREAT motivation to keep me going and I was out of the pool in 6:21.

BIKE 10k

One thing I’ve failed to mention so far is that it was SMOKEY and windy that day! The 10k course was ‘L’ shaped and we were biking into a wind on one side of each L. The wind was tough, but the smoke was way worse! My throat was burning and my eyes watered. I have an old road bike with few gears so it was frustrating when I wanted to give her and couldn’t find a sweet spot. But I was done the bike in 30:18.

RUN 2.5k

Oh man is there anything harder than the bike to run transition. Your legs are jello and you have to just give ‘er. One competitor dropped within the first 100m because his calf seized up majorly. I ran along huffing and puffing and was so frustrated because I kept having to walk it. I could blame the smoke, but it was my lack of training that made my legs so tight and my lungs so tired.

But before I knew it, I was rounding the corner to the finish line and I tried the best I could to sprint into the finish.

I was so excited to be greeted by Ryan and Tynan at the finish. Ryan and Ace made a run for treats and made it back 3 minutes after I finished, ha ha!

In the end, I was happy with the race and I really liked that distance. I know that most people who do triathlons aspire to compete in Ironmans, but for me, the super sprint is my jam!

In the end, I complete it in 1:00:11 and placed 12th overall and 1st in my category! Before you think ‘Wow!’ know that I was the only person in my category. Ha ha ha!