Obnoxiously Long Race Report: Lake Las Vegas

This turned out to be a wonderful race and a wonderful day. I'm a sucker for pictures so I've included a few :-)
The whole family(me, Form, my sister, my niece, 2 dogs and 2 cats) were up at the crack of dawn (5am) Saturday in hopes of getting us out of the house by 5:40ish, and I think we made it. The cool thing is Lake Las Vegas is literally right down the road from us.

(One of our cute and awesome cheerleaders!)

We were surprised by a long line to get the bike into transition. Apparently, they were body marking and checking bikes on the way in so it was a little slow. But no big deal really. We got all set up and headed down to the beach.

I had a little anxiety but was holding up pretty well. I tend to get very quite and dont really want to talk which makes me about zero fun. Sorry, I just cant focus on random silly things when I'm about to go against everything sane and jump into water with no wetsuit!

The morning was gorgeous but a little humid and Lake Las Vegas is one of the prettiest places to hold a tri.

The SWIM: what can I say...was it better than Danskin Disneyland Tri? I think so but there still were moments of panic and wanting to give up. I started off to the right of everyone and felt OK for about 20-30 strokes then it became a mental game for about 200M. I was not sighting very well and swam way to the right which conveniently put me very close to the dock :-). My chip was also slipping a lot and I was worried that it was going to fall off. I was NOT going to loose my chip in the lake and not have official times. And since the dock was right there, why not hang on, rest and try to fix my ankle strap??

In hind sight, this was a mistake. I did not want to let go of the dock and I really wanted to give up at this point. I really had to fight myself to start swimming again. I could not get into any grove at this point and spent a lot of time on my back "resting". Finally at the turn around point I talked to another lady that was having even a tougher time and we gave each other some support. Then I told myself to stop being silly, put my head in the water and swim back. And I did. No stopping, no resting, just swimming. Guess what? It worked! Go figure :-) I finally hit shore and was off to do the fun stuff.

Iam finally out of the water! I know it LOOKS like I am DFL, but there is 1 other swimmer somewhere back there plus ALL of the Olympic distance people that started after us. This was a great spectator swim course. Also note the line of swimmers and understand that I was way off to the right, basically out of the picture :-). Ohh, also if you look really close, you can see that my swim safety belt matches my swim cap. Beautiful!. Other random thoughts: I really need to loose a few pounds after looking at that picture and I never, not even once thought of my swim belt. WTF! I am the one that will forget I have it and drown myself and people will be shaking their heads and saying if only she'd pulled the cord :-)

One of my great signs!! (My family calls me tia)

Off to transition which was the same distance away that I had just swim (.25 miles). I always find that amusing. It was an uphill run the whole way.

The bike was three loops (somewhere around 3.5 miles each) and I loved it. This is an area that we do regular rides so I am familiar with the hills and descents. It was a tight course with lots of riders but as long as you paid attention it was great. There are some serious hills but then you get to fly down the other side!!

Finally done and off to the run! Which was HARD for the first half. You start out of transition on an uphill then run out in the desert with more hills! I ended up walking up most of the hills then trying to make up time running fast downhill. Are you noticing a theme?? I am working on being as fast as I can on the downhill to make up for the s.l.o.w uphills. Finally once I was back onto pavement I just ran as fast as I could for the last mile (which is not really that fast). We run around the end of the lake which was really cool! And it's finally over! My sister and niece were there cheering me on and I have now finished my second triathlon.

Other random thoughts: this is a very pretty venue. The fastest Oly guy finished in the same time that I did my sprint. Holy Cow! My honey did great on his race. And we gave up watching the first Ohio State Football game of the season to do this. That is unheard of! We are big football fans. Oh, and it is our 1st anniversary weekend. What a way to celebrate! I LOVE you Izaac.

172 KELLY ROWE HENDERSON NV F3539 18:27 2:22 43:51 1:34 33:46 1:39:59

the swim time included the .25 mile run up to transition. My actual active swim time was 15:35!

which is an improvement over Danskin :-). I averaged 13.9 MPH on the bike and ran a 10:42 min/mile. My Avg HR was 173 and my max HR 185!!

I finished 172/228 overall and 12/14 in my AG.

I was second to last out of the water but managed to pass people on the bike and run. I need to get better at swimming so I dont have to work so hard the rest of the race :0

I couldn't be happier!

(sorry for the bad formatting!! I'm new to this and have spent way too long on this already)