The swim was the most contact swim I have had. Got kicked a couple of times…but survived. Then got into my slow rhythm. Got to the first buoy. Then I heard this weird sound, almost like a motor boat. I stopped looked around and only saw this fellow in front of me. Then I heard the noise again, yep, it was him……strange breathing method. We stayed together pretty much the entire swim. That’s what happens when you swim one speed. At one point I saw another woman pop her head up and look around, I think she heard the ‘motor boat’ too.
Finally get to the beach and run around the buoy and get in for my second lap. My goggles had something in them and my eyes were stinging. I stopped a few times to adjust and then kept on going.

Got out of the water and hit my watch and laughed. Man, almost the same amount of time on the second lap and I pushed a few times! Boy am I consistent of what!

Headed to the super cool wetsuit strippers…yep, you pop down on the ground and they pull off your wetsuit! That is a heck of a lot easier than doing the bunny hop trying to get it off!

After the wetsuit strippers, you head through a tunnel and off to transition. Spayed myself with lots of sunscreen. Raise the Bar shirt, on – check, helmet on – check – shoes/socks on – check, sunglasses on – check, camel back on – check (yea I know I don’t really need it, but I like it.  ) As I headed out the Race Director’s wife added more sunscreen to me…. Just incase since I blinded her with my pale while Casper skin. 

Oh my, no sooner than I was on my bike then we hit a little hill to get out of town. I was thinking, I am already tired….and I know there are not too many people left behind me. Ok, I have 4 hours 30 minutes to get her done! Positive attitude and Ann J’s motto…patience. Then I hit the HWY……and started to really climb. I actually was feeling good and kind of giddy about climbing Richer at this point, I even passed a couple of folks…slowly mind you. Then I saw the photographer and gave him a hard time for being on a hill! As I was climbing I thought how lucky we are there are clouds today…then the sun decided to argue with me and came out from behind a cloud. Go away I said!! It must have heard me, cause it did go away for a bit. Up, Up, Up, I think 11 KM…..singing, the one verse I know of Helen Reddy’s I am Woman hear me roar and a silly grin on my face….yea corny I know, but I really wasn’t struggling that much. Just slow and steady. I think I thought it was going to be worse than it turned out to be…..next time might be a different story. Finally we reached the top and I gave the thumbs up to the Ambulance crew just hanging out…..then it was DOWN! WOW what a down, I think I had a mega smile pasted on my face. Then a cross wind hit and scared the crap out of me. It actually picked me up and put me back down…thankfully still on two wheels. I thought of Seujan’s race last year with her new race wheels, now WAY would I want those on this ride… and Lynne, who crashed in Moses Lake due to the wind. I wasn’t to keen on being in areo position at that point.

Then it was the start of the 7 bitches….up again. Passed two guys and said, well if we don’t make the cutoff at least we don’t have to run 13 miles.  They both laughed….and then caught me on the down hills….and we continued to play leap frog for most of the way out.

I was watching my time pretty closely…..and taking as much advantage of down hills as I felt safe with. The wind was a pain and I was happy I had the experience of Moses Lake earlier in the season so I wasn’t as bummed. It sucked but I knew I could get through it. Around 2 hours in I already saw the first place finisher headed back…WOW. A bit later I saw one of my Raise the Bar teammates and cheered him on. Finally got to the turn off section, stopped at the porta pottie, re-filled my camel back with the help of a GREAT volunteer….then was off again. This was the FUN part….TAIL WIND and FLAT section – WHOO HOO!!!! Crank away. That section was awesome….. I did get a little concerned when I passed the prior turn off and the volunteers had already gone…which means there weren’t too many people behind me. Oh well, I am still under the cutoff…so keep on pedaling. The flat was short lived… we got to start climbing the 7 ‘ladies’ back to finally Richter. It was hard, but like the horse headed home, I just put my head down and kept on pedaling. At one point I looked over and saw a lake and I was a bit spacie cause I thought to myself….that looks like ice in the lake, then realized that was pretty stupid since it was around 85 degrees….it was the weird mineral lake. There was one last aid station prior to Richer pass…I stopped gave back the icky fruit punch Gatorade and got lemon lime in stead.  Much better…then started climbing. Now the backside of Richter is HARDER! It seemed steeper. I did pass a couple of folks, then Terry passed me. I got on her wheel and stuck with her. We chatted a bit, but pretty much just focused on the hill. I know I could have ‘potentially’ been penalized for ‘drafting’ but I had asked the ref the prior night about it and she said it would be highly unlikely…so I took my chances. Finally I saw the truck lane end and yelled YAHOO, no more truck lane, that must mean DOWN HILL from here. It was…got to the top and Terry sent me on my way……and I went for it….you might have heard me Whoo Hooing all the way down.

Once I got off the hwy and was into town, looked at my watch and saw I was just under 4 hours…so pushed hard to get into the map before 4 hours! Yahoo – 3.55! I’ll take it.

Overall I felt that I had enough gears..there were only 2 or 3 times where I looked sadly at my shifter to realize I couldn’t go any easier.

Racked my bike, took all bike gear off. Washed face with wet wash cloth, boy that felt good. NEW sunscreen, socks, shoes, no foot pod again – not working, family of 4 fuel belt – with only 3 bottles this time.

Well, made the bike cut off so it’s time for a nice hot run. Since wasn’t planning on the race and just did one, I was going to be DILLIGENT and do my 5 minute run, 1 minute walk plan. The plan worked, I even walked through the aid stations. They had nice sponges, even for us SLOWER folks. The aid stations were stocked well, pretzels, flat coke, water and Gatorade. There were also neighbors spraying water on us if we wanted. The course was two loops, so you had to actually pass the finish line 3 times..before you got to actually cross it. The first loop was pretty busy….I was feeling pretty good. There was a section that had a little hill and our breakfast waitress had said her kids sometimes are out cheering people on. Sure enough I looked for them and yelled – ‘hey waitress from breakfast…here I come! Thanks for being out her.’ They laughed and cheered. Got to see them 4 times that day…they were still out there.

The second loop was good, and in a main section I slapped several folks hands as they were headed in…ahhh the camaraderie. So much fun. After that section, though it got a bit sparse. The volunteers were relaxing in chairs and would pop up when they saw me coming. One guy had all three drinks and asked what I wanted…I said anything, right now I can’t make a decision.  I had a coke and dumped water on my head. There was a guy on the course with music, passed him three times, last time he was gone…..I was sad not to have the music, plus that meant most people were done. I’d see a lone runner every little bit. Encouraged them and said the volunteers were waiting for them and they were! Ran out of GU…..the race folks gave me Banana and Orange Hammer Gel – puke. That did not sound good. Note to self, over load with GU in case! I ate some pretzels and hoped that would get me there….they did.

Finally, headed into the finishers shoot!! Whoo hoo another race done, with a SMILE! They gave me my medal, took my finisher picture then the most amazing thing happened …. The race director came up to me, shook my hand, congratulated me and asked me how my day was! That was just AWESOME. Ann J also congratulated me and gave me a big hug. It was a GREAT, GREAT DAY !!!!

EXCELLENTLY RUN race. I would totally do this again. The race director was AWESOME. didn't like the hats, but that's my only complaint!