I raced in the Galena Triathlon on May 16th, sorry this blog is a little late.

I have never raced the Galena Tri before, it was quite an event. My local training team, the Well-Fit Elite team had over 30 triathletes competing. This made for a very fun and exciting event. We rented a whole street’s worth of houses in Galena for the race.

For us Midwesterners this is one of the 1st triathlons of the season as many lakes don’t warm up past 55 degrees until mid June. We woke up Saturday morning to an unexpected chilly day. The thermometer read 48 degrees, ready to bear the early season coolness we packed up and headed out to the race course. Galena tri is a point to point bike, so we dropped off the run gear at T2 then headed towards T1. While walking from the car to the lake and T1, we realized just how windy it was out on the roads.

Once all our stuff was set up in transition we prepared for the swim. Since I was expecting the water to be very cold I borrowed a full wet suit cap from a friend (Thanks Paul!) This was not just a neoprene cap, but an all out scuba diver’s wet suit cap that goes down over your neck and into your wetsuit. I’m a baby about being cold and figured I would rather be warmer with less range of motion than to freeze. I also choose not to jump in the water before the race in an effort to stay warm. This was a mistake, once the gun went off for my wave, we began swimming and being a swimmer I pulled away from the pack. Once I rounded the 1st buoy I began to panick that the cap was suctioning around my neck and I couldn’t breathe. I stopped to tread water for 30 seconds as I struggled with the cap. Once the lead swimmingers from my wave caught up to me I realized what I was doing and decided I was overreacting. I began swimming again and was fine. I pulled away and swam the rest of the way into the shore. This swim was only 660 yards so it was over within a matter of minutes. In retrospect I should have taken my friend Paul’s advice and swam a warm up with the cap on in order to get the feeling of it.

Next thing I knew I was running to find my bike. The transition was in a valley which was on larger rock sized gravel.  So while running through transition I heard everyone grunting at the pain from their feet, although since our feet were almost numb at this point it didn’t hurt as much as it could have. I took some great advice from fellow team members not to clip my shoes into my pedals because the start of the bike mount was at the base of a steep hill. This bike course was hilly all the way through, well I should say hilly for Chicagoans since we are used to riding on very flat roads. Since it was a point to point bike we were going in one direction the entire time. Unfortunately the wind was going the opposite direction causing the bike leg to be against the wind throughout the race.  This was by far the windiest race I have ever experienced. I was riding my TTX with Aeulus5.0 tubular wheels and felt as though I was going to get blown over. I can’t imagine how it would have been like with a disc wheel that day.  While riding down the steep hills I felt my bike actually shaking. Although I had to trust gravity, I felt at some points I might just blow away. Regardless of the wind I continued to press on up the hills catching many of the men from waves before me. I still had not seen a woman but I know they are always chasing me down.

Once finished with the bike leg I was greeted at T2 by many spectators cheering and letting me know that I was in fact the first woman to come in. By this time my feet were completely numb, this made it very difficult to get my running shoes on. I am usually very quick in transitions although here I was stomping on my feet trying to jam them into my shoes. After what felt like minutes I finally got the shoes on and began to run. While in the first 100 yards a fellow racer cheered me on and we laughed at how neither of us could feel our feet. The run was filled with rolling hills and groups of spectators cheering. 2 miles into the run my feet came to life and I could finally get into a decent pace. I remember coming around to the last water stop and the announcer recognized me and shouted out my name. I kicked it in for the last mile, although since I’ve been training for longer distances I noticed a lack of speed, although my endurance felt great.  Being the first female to cross the finish line is always fun. I was greeted almost immediately with team members carrying coolers of beer.

 While waiting for awards we drank and shared race stories. I had to borrow clothes from Patrick to keep warm, Patrick is not quite as tall as me so this made for some funny pictures…

Finally I got some of my own clothes back and enjoyed the remainder of the day. We all waited for awards together and it turns out that I did take 1st place overall female.