One of my goals after having little Mikayla was to compete in a triathlon within a year. Last Saturday was the day and I did an Olympic Distance tri (1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run) at Lake Las Vegas (near Lake Meade)!
Lake Las Vegas was designed to be a resort area with exclusive casinos and hotels (Ritz Carlton among them) and exclusive designer homes. Here I am in "The Village" which is supposed to have the feel of being in Italy (I don't know if it succeeds, I've never been to Italy). Unfortunately several of the casinos have closed down (including the Ritz) and I doubt many of these shops will be open much longer (most of them are overpriced and contain niche items). It is a great place to have a triathlon, so I hope the area can continue to support these events.
The event was really fun and best of all the race was later in the day, so Hubby and Mikayla made the trip to be my support team. Hubby is an excellent race photographer, he did much better than the official race photographers.
Getting my pep talk from Mikayla!
The water temperature was 63 degrees, which means it feels like ice. Wetsuits were an absolute necessity to prevent hypothermia. I'm not exactly sure which swimmer I am, but I can assure you I am in the rear. There were 35 women racing this distance and I was probably the 30th to get out of the water.
Now to go catch all those fish!
Is it reasonable to expect a 10 month old to be pleasant for an entire 7 hours that isn't focused on her? Clearly, no. I think this picture was taken after Hubby had to take her from the green grass berm she was playing on (with all the other kiddos) to come watch me at the bike-run transition. Eh, I appreciate it Mikayla!
Nothing like a 6.2 mile run after swimming a mile and then biking for 24.9 miles.
I'm not sure how Mikayla managed to look more tired than me after I raced for 3 hours, but she did! At the end of the day I was 11th among the women and 3rd in my age group, so I was pleased. This was a relatively small race since it is so early in the season.
I'm going to do another race in April, so I hope to show some improvement. That race is an early morning start (6:30 am, seriously) so I don't think I'll have my support crew with me, but I'm sure they'll be wishing me well while they are snoozing!
