— Running Without Music

Here I am, almost 2AM, weekend almost over, PJ’s with compression socks, rehydrating with my water + Nuun, a flurry of tri gear on the floor of my living room, back from one crazy FUN weekend. WOW. A full race report will come later this week (great photos are coming through Facebook, and more as the days go by, that’s for sure) but I wanted to just let out some of my initial thoughts.

As crazy as 140.6 sounded just 9 months ago, I still can’t believe that IT just happened! Like coach Brad said, the day went by just like… that. It was a blur… how could 14 hours go by so quickly?

What I DO remember:

• Thinking about our TNT Honored Teammates Laura & Anabel pushing me through
• Everyone on the Sponsor-A-Mile list. It really gave me so much energy every time I’d glance at the list, and imagine that person being there
• Hearing our coaches voices in my head telling me all their reminders, like “Hydrate!” “Higher cadence!” “Hand jumping over barrels!” “Rotate!” “Relax!”
• “Wow, already 6 different colors of swim caps passed by”
• Friends telling me to ring my bike bell at T1.. then after I did, a loud roar of cheers
• Unexpectedly seeing my family on mile 29 in Geyserville
• “Oooh that winery would be nice to stop by”
• “Oh, gotta stop and enjoy the view” (as I did that, a bee stung me on the forehead)
• Checking out this girl on the side of the road at mile 63 “Wow, who’s that!?” (Then a split second later, found out it was my longtime TNT friend, Marcela, who came from SF to cheer me on.)
• 
  My amazing cheer squad friends at mile 69 with some crazy ridiculous signs. (I couldn’t read all of it going at the speed I was on the bike, but all I saw was the penis drawing). They were also the rowdy fun bunch at the entrance of the high school.

Also, the run out & back was a great way to cheer my teammates and also equally uplifted my spirits tenfold. Here’s what I remember:

• Scott yelling “Ahhhhh yeahhhh!” everytime I see him on the loop
• Patrick giving me words of encouragement on the run
• Donovan with the no smile, nod with just a finger point on the run (he was smooth like the Dos Equis or Old Spice guys)
• Holly’s bright orange top from a quarter mile away, then a side five & smile “you got this!”
• Julie looking strong on the final loop giving each other the look, “We’re almost done!!”
• Jasmine on her bike (after doing ANOTHER Half Iron triathlon, Barb’s Race… she did Vineman 70.3 2 weeks ago) giving me a *DING DING* on the bike
• The 70.3 team cheer squad at the top of the big hill with costumes and a huge cardboard cutout of coach Brad with the pink leopard print speedos)
• Louisville squad Kristi, Kris, Anne & Elsa all smiles & cheering me on while they do their training run after completing the Aquabike

For spectators, they probably only saw their participants on the course a total of less than a minute throughout the whole day, believe it or not each second of seeing that someone, hearing that extra cheer, that quick high five, seeing those smiles, or reading that cheer sign can make a HUGE difference in a race.

Again, I’ll blog about the race in full detail later this week (or next week), but I’m STILL on cloud 9. So much to cover, but I’m super happy with how the race went down as my first Iron distance triathlon – everything went smoothly, my nutrition was locked down and worked well, and all my teammates crossed the line. SO proud of them all! GO TEAM!