T2 was no problem…just had to remember to take off my helmet and grab my watch. My legs definitely felt like jello as I set off on the run. Ok, more like the jog. I told myself just to keep my legs moving, I’d feel them eventually. Most of the run was on a gravel trail through the park, parts of it running along a golf course. It was a pretty nice area for a run so I tried to focus on the nice scenery instead of how tired I felt. I had to stop for a minute near the beginning to tighten one of my shoelaces, it was driving me crazy. That’s when I realized I was covered in grease from the bike chain. My lovely white laces were no longer white. The run, thankfully, had no dramatic moments like the bike. I glanced at my watch as I passed the 1st mile marker and realized I had just run about a 10 minute mile. I would consider this slow compared to my old 5k times, but I had just swam 300m, biked 20k, escaped a potential DNF, and hadn’t been able to run well in months–10 minutes was good!! I told myself to try to get to the next mile marker in another 10 minutes, and then do it again, and I pretty much did.
The end of the run was across an open field. I always try to finish strong, and I can definitely say I did. I don’t know where it came from, but I sprinted across that finish line! It was hard to tell what my actual finish time was due to the staggered start (people had finished before I even got in the pool!), but I was pretty sure I’d beaten my goal of finishing in under two hours.
The husband greeted me at the finish line with a look of awe on his face. He told me I crushed my goal. Bike mishap an all!
We looked around the post-race festivities as a cooled-down and re-hydrated. I’d taken gatorade on the bike, but only drank about half my bottle. The husband was quite excited about the post-race beers 🙂 I felt I had to have just because I could, but honestly I preferred the water and bagel 🙂 I bought myself a reward:
Not that the husband isn’t supportive or didn’t think I could do it, but he was seriously impressed and kept saying so the whole way home. He caught my post-race fever 😉 He even said in the car ride home he’d do it with me next year…that wore off by the time we got home- he said he’d rather play in a golf tournament. But I still appreciated the support 🙂 I was ravenous at this point so we stopped for some Subway, which I devoured.
Time to pick a race for next year!
