St. Anthony's: Kicking off the Tri Season!

Well.... It has officially begun! Tri season is here, and I raced St. Anthony's yesterday to kick off my season.

It was a lot of fun! By far the biggest race I've ever done before! 4500 people... WOW!! That is a lot of people. 32 Swim waves, and I was in like 28 of the 32. So LOTS of waiting around! Honestly, not the biggest fan of the waiting... I get too nervous! I need to get in there and get it done. Sitting around for 2 hours before you start, those butterflies just build up!

Adam hung out with me a little bit in the beginning, so it went by pretty quickly, but still!

The weekend went by so quickly as well!

We arrived around 6:30pm in St. Petersburg at the house we rented. The house was AWESOME!! It was a young man's home that rented it out for vacation, and though it was an older home, he had completely restored it, and it was so nice!

The house was full of beautiful furniture and unique decorative items. It had a huge flat screen t.v. with all kinds of movies and games for the kids and a couch that you could seriously live in it was so comfortable!

The outside was the best! He had this little backyard pond on the side where our new friend Boris lived. He was the pet turtle who is very much like Rocky in that he loves to eat! We kept feeding him turkey and so everytime he saw us, he'd come up to us expecting food. Then there was a pool with 3 separate cabana areas... It was great!

So we got somewhat settled in, and then Saturday was so busy!

By the time you do your quick swim, bike, and run, get checked in, check out the expo, check your bike in, etc... It was like 2pm! I promised the kids we'd go to the beach, so we headed over to the public beach area at around 3pm. Ok... it was like Spring Break all over again! We went to this place called Crabby's for lunch and it was seriously a meat factory! Boy's and girls all over who thought they were WAY hotter than they actually were! It was funny!

And I have a declaration.... and if this offends you, I'm sorry... I'm just telling it like it is!

NO ONE... No matter how beautiful, fit, tan, in shape, toned, etc you are.... NO ONE.... should wear a thong! It's not attractive... PERIOD! I was eating for crying out loud... I do not want to see your rear!

Ok, so I've went off on a tanget... Sorry :)

So before I know it, it's Sunday morning!

I did my waiting as I mentioned earlier.... and then the swim...

The swim was kind of rough. I was hoping for it to be faster than I did, but you know... you live and learn. The water was rough and we were swimming against the current for the majority of it. Sighting has always been a problem for me, so I really focused on it this time. I think I did really well with it! But I couldn't navigate very well. Coming in on one of the last swim waves, by the time we got to the first turn, I was swimming amongst 2 other swim cap colors. I was trying to grab hold of someones feet that I thought I could hang with, but the only feet I kept finding were those of the slower ladies 2 groups ahead of me that were doing the breast stroke. So I kept having to swim around all of those people and couldn't really get into any sort of a groove. So when I came out of the water and looked at my watch, I was thinking... CRAP! But, I just chugged along and knew I'd catch up on the bike...

T1 Freaked me out a bit too because I knew I was feeling like it was taking forever... However, I looked at the other girls in my age-groups splits, and a lot of people were kind of slower too...Still something I feel I need to work on. So off to the bike!

I knew it was supposed to be a technical course with 40 turns. So I told Coach Jen I wanted a 1:07, and she said push for 1:10. Again, coming off the back, that's just that many more people to try to navigate around, so times get slower towards the end. So we decided a 1:10 would be good. Well, I felt GREAT on the bike! I was flying and things were going really well. I have this little thing I like to play while I'm on the bike racing and that's I don't want to get passed by any girl! And there was this one girl that kept trying to pass me. She passed me 2 times, and I kept just pushing for my opportunity to catch her. I felt like she'd lose some speed towards the end. Fortunately, I caught her in one of the last turns and came in without allowing anyone to pass! Some girl in my age group did beat my bike split by 13 sec. So I ended up with the 2nd fastest, but I held true to my no pass rule, and came in at 1:07 exactly! I was very happy with that!

The run was freaking HOT! Maybe it won't seem that hot in a couple of months. Living in Georgia, I get used to serious heat and humidity, but my body isn't acclimated to it now. So it seriously hurt! But I did push it to the best of my ability I think. I finished with nothing left to give, and that's all I can ask for. It wasn't as fast as I'd like... but I guess we can almost always say that. :)

But the good news is that this was my 3rd Olympic Distance triathlon. My previous times were a 2:48:59 at Tugaloo in 2006, a 2:50:49 at Chattanooga Waterfront in 2007 with a 2 min. penalty and yesterday I finished with a 2:29:35. Almost a 20 min drop in my times on that distance, so a new MUCH better PR, and I'm definitely happy about that! Plus, I ended up with 8th in my age-group, so that was great! And I walked away with a lot of stuff that I've learned so I can get ready for Hawaii 70.3 in less than 5 weeks!!

Oh.... and my hip/butt/leg did pretty well! I loaded up on some advil right before the race to take the edge off and by the time I got to the run, I never really felt it! All that adrenaline had me going! :) So that was good, and it isn't really that bad today either, so hopefully with a week's worth of "recovery" here at Disney, I'll be ready to go full speed ahead next week!! :)

And of course the best part of the trip was getting to meet some of my favorite blogger friends! I met Jen of course in person and Bree. I hate that I never met up with Brooke or Beth. I honestly did look for you Brooke in a blue swim cap at the swim start!

Congratulations to everyone on a super race! Amy W... you did great! Bree, Jen, Beth all had amazing races! Let's go get 'em girls!!
K :)

My internet is slow... so I can't post pictures now, but I will add them this afternoon!