Triathlon Number 3 Complete!

We did it!!!! We survived swimming in the ocean! :) And there were no reported shark attacks! :) And we had fun doing it. So Friday afternoon I went and picked up my 4 other friends in Matt's Tahoe and off we went. We were supposed to have 2 other friends go with us but they ended up not being able to go and so we were able to fit all 5 women and 5 bikes in our car...thank goodness we didn't have to drive a second car with the way gas is right now. We drove 2 hours and to Sarasota and talked the whole way.

So here I am at Amy Lopez's house to pick her up. We tried our hardest to put the bike rack on :)


Next we picked up Tracy Bosch and then Marie Winchester and last Carrie Helms. Luckily her husband Matt came out to help us and inspected our installation of the bike rack and quickly began working on redoing what we had done :) (THANK goodness for Matt!)

We all watched very closely as he gave us Bike Rack 101. We knew we were going to have to keep taking it off and on all weekend.
OK now we are secure and ready to go!!!
I was the driver....

And here is our back seat riders :) And dumb me didn't even think to grab the camera from Amy and take shots of her riding shot gun! (Sorry Amy!)
Usually the packet pick up is at the race site or at a local facility the night before...this one was a little foreign to us when they said to come to the "Local Coffee & Tea". We started to worry that this was going to be a very small and unorganized race. We thought maybe we would be the only 5 doing the race :) But thankfully we were wrong and there were about 300 competitors. Here's the packet pick up...it is owned by the guy who put on the race and half of the place is a coffee shop and half is a bike repair shop. Kind of a strange mix of businesses, but hey it works. So now all of us little mormon moms have water bottles that say Local Coffee & Tea that we got free in our packets :) The owner was so funny and was teasing us and called us "high maintenance" just because we were bummed that they weren't going to have split times at the race (where they tell you how long your swim was, your bike time, and your run time) instead they had one lump sum time of your whole race. Also he didn't have the t-shirts yet and he told us that we would have to wait until race morning to get them, but then we were still there when a guy brought the boxes of t-shirts in and so we waited around and got them then and there...I guess we were high maintenance :)
After we picked up our packets we went and checked out the race site. BEAUTIFUL!!!! The sand felt like flour on our feet. Nice to walk in but we were a little worried about RUNNING in it! YIKES!


Then we went to the condo and got settled. The resort was located on Longboat Key and it was called The Colony which is ironically where Matt and I stayed on our honeymoon! It was the perfect size for us. Then we got all changed and went to dinner at a cute little restaurant that had outdoor seating. It was so weird to sit and enjoy a meal without having to quiet children, clean up messy little faces, and entertain kids :)

That night the nerves set in as we were getting all our stuff organized and testing our bikes. It was pretty funny because we all started trading and checking out each other's bikes right there in our room :)
The next morning we were up bright and early and had to reload all the bikes. I think we did a MUCH BETTER job this time :) Matt Helms would have been proud.

We got there and already all the bike racks were filling up and there weren't too many slots open. We all had to slide in where we could. The morning went so fast and before we knew it we were heading down to the water to start.
We had this funny idea...since we didn't know how big of an operation this race was, we weren't sure if they would have a photographer and none of us had family there to take pictures for us. So we bought a little throw away camera and decided we would "find a friend" to take pictures for us. That way it wasn't a nice digital camera that we had to trust our new friend with, and then if anything happened to it we were only out a couple of bucks. Well we found a friend :) The problem is we took a few shots at the beach and she did and before we all even got out of the water the little camera was out of shots! I think we are all so used to digital cameras where you can take a ton of pictures. So after I came across the finish line I ran to the girl to grab the camera from her so I could take a picture of the rest of our group and it was out! DANG! We thought it was a pretty good idea and we were hoping to find a friend that didn't turn out evil and decide to play a mean joke on us and just sit and take pictures of herself making mean faces at us or even flipping us off :) She turned out nice and here are a few shots...again it's not digital and the pictures are very bad quality...but hey that's ok now we have some pictures out on the beach as the race kicks off.

Here's me coming up out of the water and onto the beach...

Then here I am after the grouling race! It was actually quite a fun race. The swim was shorter then the previous races we had done. At first I wasn't liking it because I forgot about how salty the water would be. First thing when I dove into the water I got a mouth full and quickly remembered! The nice part of the swim was that at the end the waves helped you and it was like you were body surfing in and it was great to have that push. BUT THEN you had to run through that soft sand and that was HARD! The transition was smooth and the bike was fine. I felt bad because there was one turn around point that was kind of a sharp turn and the guy a couple of people back from me totally slid and crashed. Yikes! There was one little hill, and for us Floridians any kind of a hill is hard because we are used to FLAT. But it was nice to get the momentum of the down hill slope. I had my best time on my bike so I was pleased (I have a little odometer on my bike). Then the run...UGH! It is always hard for me to transition from the bike to the run because my legs feel like bricks...but this time you add the running on the sand factor and that made it even harder. We did run right there on the shore near the water and so the sand is hard and so that made it easier once you got past the soft sand, BUT it was kind of hard to look and see the people clear out there on the beach and realize that's how far you had to go! They looked really far away. But soon it was over and it was great! Triathlons are so fun because coming across the finish line you feel such a feeling of accomplishment. (And fatigue :) It was cute to see that all of us immediately after the race went to our phones to call our husbands! :)

I actually got second place in my age division! The trophies were these funny little carved coconut heads :)

That day we had planned on going back to the condo and getting our suits on and heading right to the beach to lounge all day!!!! BUT it rained ALLLLLLL DAY! It didn't really bug us though, we took naps, read, and talked and talked and talked. Let's just say many a funny family stories were shared :) It let up for a minute and so we ran out to see the beach and the pool. It was beautiful, but it only lasted a few minutes and then here came the rain! We got caught out in it and were soaked!


So we went back to the condo and dried off and changed for dinner. There was a nice little restaurant right there at the condo that had a covered outdoor seating area. Right as we got there one of the waitors told us the sun was setting right then, so we ran out and watched it and it was gorgeous! We found another "friend" and got some more pictures. Then we had dinner and talked some more. We were the only ones in the whole restaurant.

What a perfect trip! I was the party pooper and had to get us back in time for our ward, so again we had an early morning on Sunday, but it was still a perfect weekend! I was even on time for church! Matt had to be to some early meetings and so my neighbor came over when he left to stay with the kids. Sweet Matt had the house totally clean before he left for church and the kids had it totally destroyed by the time I got there :) Matt did a great job with the kids and the house duties and I am so grateful for all he did! THANKS Honey!

Here's links to the pictures from the professional photographer that was there...
Me after swim
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b70aefef&idx=121

Me during the bike
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43bfc57a52&idx=204

Me at the finish looking like I'm dying! :) I showed this picture to Emma and she said I look like I'm dying while I was thinking it.
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b70b7a98&idx=164


And here's my friends!
Tracy on bike http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b7057a96&idx=31

Amy
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b7057a96&idx=251

Carrie
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b7057a96&idx=269

Marie
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b7057a96&idx=279

Another Tracy
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b7057a96&idx=280

Amy

http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b70b7a98&idx=242

Tracy
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b70b7a98&idx=265

Carrie
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b70b7a98&idx=276

Marie
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b70b7a98&idx=275

Amy after swim
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b70aefef&idx=150

Tracy after swim
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b70aefef&idx=179

Carrie after swim
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b70aefef&idx=181

Marie after swim
http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf43b70aefef&idx=202