Big Fish, Little Fish, and Bottom Feeders

You probably noticed that someone stole an hour from most of us over the weekend.  Yes, you lucky folks in Arizona and Hawaii still have your hour.  Wait.  Maybe you've been stealing them all along. 

THIEVES!

Off to the races...

After losing that hour and not being able to sleep all that well anyway, I somehow got out of bed Sunday morning for the St. Patrick's Day Triathlon.

The weather was nice.  There was no wind in the chilly transition area at 6:30 am when I arrived and arranged my stuff but I was glad when they let us inside the natatorium to hang around for the start of the race. 

Swimmers hit the water by 7:40 am and I listened to a dude playing bagpipes for over an hour before it was my turn to swim.  Can I have his lung capacity?

In the pool, I felt pretty good until the next to last leg.  That's when I encountered octopi.  No, these weren't critters recently escaped from the ocean, but they were men flailing about doing every stroke imaginable to stay afloat and to get ahead of the other guys (of course!).  There were hands and legs and bodies everywhere going nowhere. They completely blocked the swim lane so I had to invent a slither stroke to get around them.  SHEESH!

The exit ladder was a welcome sight.

  

After dripping my way through the transition area to my stuff and attempting to towel off,  I hopped on my bike for the next part of the race.

While on my ride, I saw a local elite runner out for her morning practice.  This woman chases cars for practice.  No, not really, but she does sprint half marathons. She reminds me of the Energizer Bunny and the vortex of energy around her is surely very powerful.  Her name is Fiona (what a pretty name) which I've conveniently changed to "Speedy Fi (fee)".  Maybe it's good her parents did not name her Phoebe.  "Speedy Phoebe" is just too hard to say.

I must learn to siphon her energy.  Too bad she was going the opposite direction or I might have asked her to carry me and my bike up the hill.

Finally, I finished the ride, found my stuff, racked my bike, took off my bike helmet (very important) and started the run.

But wait. What's this?  My feet were numb.  What the frozen tundra was that about?  Yes, it was chilly on the bike after being in the water but I didn't think I was that cold.  Apparently, I was.  That, and the fact that my brain said "send blood to quads, glutes, and hamstrings" over and over again for almost an hour.

The finish line was beautiful.  Hubby arrived just as the announcer called my name as I was crossing the line.  Hubby couldn't have planned that if he'd tried.   

I got me some pancakes, and no, they weren't green.

The lady with the green hair...

I wore my costume.  I had the shirt and skirt on for the bike ride and added the green hair and a hat for the run.  I received many comments, mostly from guys on bikes passing me saying "nice skirt".......

I certainly didn't mind.  A few of the ladies indicated that they liked my hair.    There weren't too many costumes so it must have been up to me to entertain folks!

The results are in....

Surprisingly, on the running part, I did quite well, coming in second in my age group.  For swimming, I need to advance from bottom feeder to at least little fishie drafting off big fishies in order to improve my swim time.  I improved my biking time by over 10 minutes.  I noticed something else, though.  My quads are about 1/3 the size of some of these ladies' quads.  That can be said for my butt, too, and that's a good thing!

Update: Although I'm happy with my run results, I placed very low in the swim and bike events so my overall result makes me somewhere between a bottom feeder and a little fish.  LOL.

I hope to have some photos soon.