Esprit de She Sprint Triathlon

Many of you know that I started running about 2 years ago. Well, on June 4th, I celebrated my 2-year runniversary while I was up at LeaderShape (my week-long leadership program in Wisconsin). In honor of this monumental occasion, I participated in the Esprit de She Sprint Triathlon on June 14th.

If you're unfamiliar with a sprint triathlon, like I was, let me tell you a bit about it! It's a 3-event race, including:

• .5 mile swim (often in open water, but this event was in a giant pool)
• 13.3 mile bike
• 3.1 mile run

Waiting in the rain to swim

I signed up to start in the wave of first-time triathletes. Let me tell you, if I could go back and have a do-over, I would definitely NOT do that! After being up super early to get situated in the transition area, where you change between events, and being in the rain from 6:15 until 7:00 am getting set up, standing on the beach for an hour and 45 minutes (mostly in the rain) wasn't my favorite thing ever. That said, it was cool to be with a bunch of other women who were first-timers... even if they were totally nervous and complaining like crazy.

Riding like crazy

Let me also give a shout out to Joe, who stood in the rain waiting for me to start for all that time and THEN stood around cheering for me for the 2 seconds of each event that he could see me. He was an awesome cheerleader and support, helping me with my bike and braving the elements to serve as my fan club. He was a rock star!

Overall, I was really pleased with the event and my hard work to get to it. I did pretty well in each
event, including my best race 5k time ever:

• Swim = 16:01 minutes
• Bike =1 hour and 1 minute
• Run = 9.55 minute miles = 30:49 minute
• TOTAL = 1 hour, 55 minutes, 52 seconds

Looks like I have a goal time to beat for the 2016 event in Naperville. Who's with me? :)

Almost at the finish line!