So I went to Cancun last week, and it was awesome. I had never been to Mexico before, well, there was this one trip to Tijuana my freshman year of college…but I am not sure that really counts.

Anyway, I went to Cancun, and it was awesome. The sand was white, the water was blue, the shrimp was delicious. I arrived on Wednesday and chilled on the beach until I raced on Sunday. Maybe “chilled” isn’t the right word, it was 95 degrees with 95% humidity, this leaves us with a heat index of about 185 degrees.

The race started with a swim in hot, shallow salt water, as Michellie Jones told me after the race, “I felt like I was swimming in soup.” I came out of the water in 30 minutes, ran through the longest transition area EVER, and hopped on my hog.

The bike course was flat and fast, and I took full advantage, coming away with a 10 minute bike PR of 2.24…yeeeeah buddy. The run was a different story. The first 6 miles I just kept telling myself “left, right, repeat.” This strategy seemed to work, and I was holding steady in 4th place. However, I wanted to be 3rd, because I wanted to do the post race stand on the podium and spray the champaign thing.

At 9 miles, my legs started to come around, and surprisingly, I felt fantastic. I started running like a wild woman for the last 5k and caught the woman in 3rd. My legs felt so good, I started wishing it was a full Ironman.

After the race I walked through the finisher tent where they had chairs under cold showers, this was basically the best thing ever. Then I got a massage, this was not the best thing ever. It involved 3 people, two pulled on my legs and the other was poking my butt. It was bizarre.

To summarize, I went to Cancun, and it was awesome. I feel extremely blessed to have had such an experience.

God Bless and thanks for reading,
Laura Tingle