Okay guys...right now I have a warm buzz, kind of exhausted feeling goin on!! BUT I FINISHED!!!!! I feel great and I can't wait for next year.
Details: Canoeing was much more exhausting then I expected. My dh and I agreed that next year we need to go canoing a few times before the race. I wasted a lot of time in transition. When I began the bike leg, I thought, "man I can't finish this, no way, I'm exhausted already and I've hardly begun". But I swear, God sent an angel. This older man came up behind me right at the beginning of the bike and I told him "I don't know if I can finish this - I'm already exhausted" and he gave me all kinds of encouragement "you can do it, just get through the hill, keep focused, it's not that bad, you can do it" and then he passed me and about 50 feet later he turned around and went in the opposite direction and just disappeared. I never saw him again. Interesting huh...yep he was an angel.
A while later I passed my dh and I ended the bike part just a little before him. The transition to running wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, BUT I was so shakey by now that I was worried about tripping on the trail...my friend said a lady in front of her did this and twisted her ankle. The rest of the run went well - huge hill to run up in the beginning, but the rest was better. What I had trouble with through the race was my shoulders aching, most probably from the canoe. I would lean on my bike handle bars and couldn't get comfortable.
I'm still waiting for results to be posted on the website. We waited for the citizen class results and they announced the top three for my class and then we left. I think I could have placed in the younger class as I think my time was right in there between the 2nd and 3rd placers in the younger class, BUT man those 40 and up are tough cookies. Amazing. All in all, it was tougher than I ever imagined, but I think considering my lack of ANY slow twitch muscle fibers I did okay. Thanks for letting me babble and for all your encouragement.
Briee