Triathlon #3: Denville Triathlon, New Jersey

I had yet another absolutely amazing weekend. Today was another triathlon day.

I was so wound up the night before. I was exhausted from the week but I really wanted to do a good job. The triathlon I did last week showed me that it was possible for me to do a good job. I imagined swimming well, I imagined biking better and I imagined tackling hills during the run. Anytime I do that visualization, it is almost like I am racing in my body so it takes me a while to calm down. After such an amazing saturday I wanted to top off the weekend having gotten better in this whole triathlon thing. It felt a little bit wrong to imagine doing really well because ultimately this sport, though it’s a race, up until now has been more of a race against myself. I guess I wanted to see how I stacked up. I meditated myself to sleep focusing on how good I feel as a person regardless of how I did.

I woke up before the dawn and joyfully drove to my favorite tunes to absolutely no other cars on the road. Ah, would be nice to encounter the roads like this more often. I was honored and lucky to have a few friends with me. We were some of the first people there, which was a great tip to take from my friends. When you get there early you can relax a little, use the portapotties when they are still clean and we got first pick of where to set up our bikes at the transition area. I got prime real-estate.  I actually learned a ton from my buddies. They showed me a spray for my wetsuit, powder for my shoes, they gave me tips and goals…. They are crazy good at Triathlons and they inspired me big time. When it was time for my run part I heard one of my guys saying, “dig deep Angela!”. Oh my, did I dig deep…

It was cloudy and rainy but it was a wonderful temperature. I put my wetsuit on though I probably could have done this particular race without it. The danger is over heating but I was good for this race. I knew as people started flocking to the start I really got excited. Consider all the jumping and dancing around as part of my warm up when you watch the video. I even got a comment during the run part that my dancing was awesome. Out of the water I had no idea how well I was doing but someone said I’m 3rd on the bike so I’d better get moving. They totally lied to me, apparently I was 11th out of the water, but I rocked that bike! I flew past people and only was passed by one chick and a guy. They both flew by me so fast they looked like a blur so I talked myself out of it actually having happened. I went so fast on the bike in fact that I was worried going into the run that I had used myself up. That wasn’t wrong!

This was another hard run, at least in the beginning. The first hill is where yet again, I was passed by a few of the people from behind. After the first mile it was flat or down hill so I tried really hard to catch the people in front of me. I wasn’t even close to catching them but I didn’t want the chick behind me to catch me, so I pretty much ran my fastest 5k ever. Every group of volunteers or crowd I encountered after mile 2 said “you’re almost there!”. Their idea of ‘almost there’ and mine are completely different specially after I started sprinting at a half mile to go! Clearly whatever I did though got good results, at least for this race! The pictures taken at the end make me look like I was dying. I actually kind of felt like that. I totally hugged the girl chasing me and thanked her for being such in inspiration. She almost caught me. Almost!!

At the end I felt amazing! I knew I did well but I didn’t really know how well. Talk about an emotional finish. I really felt like I earned it. But really this is just the beginning…