About a week ago I got a fun little email reminding me of a triathlon relay I had registered for. On a normal day, this would be a routine email. However, on this day I panicked. Why? Well, you see I FORGOT I had registered for a triathlon relay, and my only team-mate was Alain, who had not run in a month.
Since my marathon at the end of May, I had been taking a few weeks to relax and recuperate from the long and gruelling race. In other words, I had not trained for a triathlon I was supposed to run in a week. I casually went home that night and mentioned it to Alain. Thank god I have a man that seems to be always naturally in shape. We figured we were young and both in shape that we could wing it. HA! Wing it you say, wait until you read my bike portion below.
The swim
The swim was an open water swim in a river. It was chilly first jumping in, but when you put a hundred swimmers in the same area, the water tends to heat up. The directions wear simple, which is always very helpful. While swimming you don’t have time, nor the ability, to ensure you are swimming in the right direction. Despite only swimming once before the race, I did my personal best time for a 500 meter swim, finishing in just 8.01 minutes.
The bike
Once again, I was unprepared for the bike. The bike was 26km long bike, so not too long; however, the bike was on long county roads. County roads could only mean one thing = hills. I had never done hill training, aside from the one hill I bike up every day after work on the corner of Smith and Alta Vista. Needless to day, the bike ride was hard. Thank god it was one giant loop, no laps.
The plus side of this bike ride was the site seeing. On the back roads of Smith Falls there are some lovely homes.
The run
The run was the fun part, because I didn’t have to do it. The race was a relay, which meant I would do the swim and the bike, then pass the torch to my wonderful sweetheart Alain who would do the 5km run.
But let’s face it, I am competitive, even against the man I love, actually, especially against the man I love. So I couldn’t let him cross the finish line alone, or before me. So with 200 meters to go, I started jogging beside him and declared a race. Despite the crowds cheering for the “girl”, I distinctly heard cheers for “go girl, you can beat him”, Alain beat me across the finish line, but by a nose hair.
All in all, for a race I forgot about, and for a race I had no training for, it turned out to be a wonderful adventure to Smith Falls and back.
