Sprinting into 2nd...

I had really put my legs through a lot this week between 11 miles of trails on monday followed by a swim, 33 miles cycling on tuesday, track, and then finals for my 2 summer courses this week to top it off.  I had planned on going to Folsom triathlon as a spectator to watch my boyfriend tackle his first official triathlon.  However, a friend ended up having a free entry up for grabs so I decided to race and just have fun with it.

Nick and I loaded up the car and headed for Folsom.  I already wasn't so sure about the swim since I knew this would be much colder than what I was used to, so I kept focusing on the fact it was only half the distance.  I set up my transition area, headed out for a warm-up run and stuffed myself into my wetsuit.

The Swim: So I decided to go sleeveless to cut down on transition time and sure enough I did.  Although my swim was atrocious, as usual, I did get the fastest T1 out of the whole lot of women!  This was the most aggressive swim I've done, I had to dodge kicks from every direction, praying my goggles wouldn't get knocked off.  Although I may have some bruises in the morning and managed to get hydrated on the swim I finished with a 16:49.

The Ride: I headed out confident that if I'm going to catch anyone I need to do it here, this is my sport (well at least out of the three).  Unfortunately, I would also to have to overcome my bad luck of flat tires in order to make it to the run.  I decided early on that a flat tire would mean DNF this time.  Fortunately, this didn't happen, I made it around all the turns and past the debris without a flat tire or crashing, but there were quite a few close calls.  I dismounted the bike with overwhelming excitement which I would later find out was a 43:09 ride.

Now my T2 was not as great as T1, it was faster, but I'm a little nervous about unstrapping my tri shoes while riding is a little nerve racking for me.  So I took the extra 20 seconds to take off my shoes and slide on my Zoots.

I had hardly anything in my legs by now, but I just kept saying, "3.1 miles is not that far, you can do it, you won't die."  Although I was in pain I started to notice there weren't very few women on the course.  I ran into Nick on my way out, gave him a big high 5 as he headed toward the finish and I conquered the  very warm run course.  I have to say the trail running is paying off, because I made it up and over the hills, around the turn around, and past a few girls out on the course.  I cheered all the women I did pass on, "Great job, way to go!"  I even cheered on the few female athletes in front of me and of course the FOMO crowd.  I used the last bit of energy I had to sprint toward the finish...End time 1:25:14

After all was said and done, I secured 2nd place and 10th in my gender, Woohoo!!!  Turns out Nick and our friend Eric made it to the podium as well, so we all collected our victory wine bottles and headed home!