Dawn Dorathy: Callaway Gardens Sprint Triathlon

For my blog about my first triathlon, I was going to recount all of the arduous details of the previous day- like how before we even left our house Charles tried to pull the car into the garage with his bike already on roof with Leif in his carseat pointing at the ceiling say "Wow-wow-wow", and the hours of traffic we sat in because of the car fire in front of us, the mix-up with room assignments that took us forever to get settled once we arrived at Callaway. But, while the day before the triathlon seemed more like an endurance-sport then the actual event itself, it's not all that interesting to hear all of the details.

Along with the amazing pictures by the beautiful and talented

Sheryl Duckett I will try to briefly describe each of the three events:

The swim. I trained for 12 weeks, working to perfect my swim strokes, to increase my speed and endurance in the water.

The actual event of a group swim is more like water wrestling, interrupted by some brief doggie-paddle.

For me, it was also The Great Apology.

Picture 150 women in their 30s hitting and kicking each other in the water, and with their only remaining breath trying to apologize constantly. There has to be a better way to prepare for this section, but I don't know what it is.

I'm sorry! (There, I said it again)

The ride. I did pretty well in the biking section, so a brief description of this section, could be summarized by, "ON YOUR LEFT!"(the polite way to pass), which I said so much, I finally abbreviated to "LEFT!".

(Transitioning from biking to running.)

The run. I knew the run would be my hardest section. I was tired from the swim & bike, my legs felt like rubber, and the sun was starting to feel REALLY hot. On top of that, a lot of competitors were walking by this point, (at least the ones I was passing) which actually drains a lot of psychological energy.

My mind was saying, 'let's just walk now', but one of the things I learned in my weeks of training was to honestly assess my body, and not listen to my mind.

My body was okay, and I pushed through, and was able to sprint the final section which was a downhill to the finish line, which in my head sounded a little like this- "I'm sprinting to the finish! I'm sprinting to the finish! I'm sprinting to the finish! Holy Crap, there's still a long way to the finish!

I'm sprinting to the finish! I'm still sprinting to the finish! I'm sprinting to the finish!" My final lesson learned was that I need to cool down after an event like this. I stopped short as soon as I crossed the finish line, and thought I was going to die. But, I didn't.