Naperville Women's Triathlon!!!

    So I did it!! I completed my first triathlon!! Needless to say I am super pleased with the whole experience!  I was really nervous before and the weather was supposed to be pretty bad, which could have made the event miserable!  But, the weather moved on more quickly than anticipated and we just had a cloudy day instead!  So here's how the day went:

     We, my Dad, Sister and I, traveled down me to Naperville at 5 in the morning! Talk about sleeping in on my day off!?  So we found a parking spot and then unloaded my bike and equipment and walked on down to the transition area.  We were there SUPER early! 

 By 5:45 we were there and my transition area was pretty much all set-up.  The waves started at 7:00am with the Elites and Triumphs.  The elites were super impressive to watch dominate the course!  The Triumphs, which I learned while at the race, are the women who were either in remission or still fighting ovarian cancer, since the race was a fundraiser for Ovarian Cancer, it was super emotional and impressive to see these women overcome these battles! I was in the youngest age wave, so I didn't start until 8:36, talk about a long wait! But I ran into my Best Friend's Cousin and we hung out and waited till it was our turns! 

When my wave entered the water, the announcer said that we are the youngest age group and that we are the future of Triathlons! That was a very cool thought! Then he asked how many of us were First Timers, almost everyone raised their hands, everyone cheered for us!  It was awesome!  Then it went quiet and all the girls around me were saying how nervous they were, I felt much better after hearing that they were nervous too!  Then we were off!  The swim was a little more draining than I had anticipated but some of the ends were shallow enough to walk through, which was a perfect reprieve!  Finished .46 mile swim, onto the Bike Ride!

   I hopped onto the Bike and was off, my pace was about 19-20 miles per hour, it was a great pace and a 2 loop through neighborhoods with some slight hills. 

Then it was over and onto the run!

I felt like I was pretty slow on my run, probably just because I had just come off of the bike and had been going at a pretty good clip, but my Dad had timed me and my run was about 27 minutes, so about a 9min mile, not super fast but I was pleased with the time after a swim and a ride! 

My official finish time was 1:32:22, placing me 470 out of over 2,000 other women triathletes! Needless to say I am very happy with the results from my first Triathlon!