Raymond triathlon, July 30, 2011

12 DOIG, BECKY 3820 SP30-39F 00:10:31.80 6 1 00:43:42.15 11 2 00:25:34.05 11 2 4 2 01:19:48.00 MAGRA

Last Saturday, I entered the Raymond Triathlon. I had hurt both my foot and my back waterskiing almost 2 weeks before the race. I was able to bike and swim to train, but had to limit my running leading up to the race.

The Raymond triathlon swim is in a pool. My swim time was 10:31 for 500 m including about 30 seconds of transition time. This was 10 seconds faster than my time for last year, 3rd/16 women and the 6th /28 overall. It was about 15 seconds slower than I have been swimming in the pool at home though, but I guess you have to consider sharing a lane and also needing to save some energy for the other disciplines.

My bike was 43:42. I thought that was great at the time, because last year I was the 2nd fastest woman with a time of 45:58. However, the wind must have been more favorable this year. I was 11th on the bike this year, 5th/16 women. I borrowed my friend Tabatha's bike. Although it is a very good bike, it didn't fit me quite right.

My run was 25:34, 11th overall and 6/16 women. My run went way better than I expected. For almost 2 weeks, it felt like a had a bone out of place in my foot. I had been to the chiropractor, but not until I had run a couple of times on it and it was inflamed and sore. Anyway, as of race day I hadn't run since Tuesday. Before the race, it still felt like the bone was a little wrong. Anyway, during the race it didn't hurt at all and after the race everything seemed to be back to normal. It's a miracle!

I have really enjoyed doing triathlons again this summer. It is so fun! I apologize for putting in so much about results. This is the closest thing I have to a journal.

In the days before the Raymond triathlon, I started researching and shopping for a road bike of my own. One day, Rob and I went to Lethbridge and went to all the bikes shops in town and picked the employee's brains about what to look for in a road bike. We also brought home brochures for several different manufacturers. I also read lots of reviews and promotional material on the internet. I looked on ebay and craigslist and kijiji. On the day of the triathlon, an ebay auction for a Trek 5500 carbon bike was ending during the triathlon. I had been watching this bike, and made a quick bid before going to the race. When I got home, I found out I won the auction and had bought myself a bike. It's an older bike (probably 1999), but was a high end bike in its day. I hope it turns out to be a wise purchase. I think I will be pretty nervous until I get and and can try it out. I appreciate Rob being willing to allow me to spend so much money on something on the selfish side for myself. I hope I can put it to good use. With a bike of my own, my next challenge needs to be an olympic distance triathlon!

Wasa 2011

I completely slacked on taking pictures at Wasa this year. Luckily, Sherylee and Michelle got some great shots. They also about nailed the analysis of how the holiday went on their respective blogs. Michelle's post was titled "Wasa 2011: the year of the bloodsuckers." The mosquitoes were really bad this year. I always took for granted that there were very few mosquitoes at Wasa Lake, but I found out this year, from talking to the campground host, that they pay a mosquito tax to pay for helicopter delivered larvicide programs. However, this year, something went wrong and the larvicide didn't work.

Also, the weather wasn't ideal this year. It was cool for a couple of days and there was some rain each day, too. However, looking at the forecast in advance, I thought there was no way it would be nice enough to boat on at least 2 days. In reality, though, we got the boat out each day and even on the cool days, it was warm when the sun came out in the afternoon.

Everyone was in good spirits regardless of weather and mosquitoes. In addition to boating, we played lawn darts and made crafts. Granny nailed the food as usual and it was fun just being together.

I really enjoyed biking and running with Sherylee. I also loved how Kayden hung out with the girls and made them feel special. It was really neat that Chad learned to ski and wakeboard and that Keston learned to kneeboard and also got up on the wakeboard. Although I missed it myself, I also heard Tylissa skiied. It was fun to see Alyssa and Kaylene double kneeboard too. Of course there was also lots of tubing, and Monte rocks when it comes to dumping kids off the tube. On one occasion, Alyssa, Kaylene and Keston got dumped in sensational fashion. The tube flipped and they all went tumbling in respective summersaults over top of each other. Alyssa also had a pretty spectacular landing after a slolam ski. Rob was dropping her off at the shore, and apparently she was coming in too hard. She landed on the beach and sommersaulted over her ski. She got pretty bruised up, but miraculously was not badly hurt. Unfortunately, no one recorded it on video for America's Funniest.

We missed those of the family who couldn't be at Wasa this year...it seems the family continues to grow up and spread to the wind. On Tuesday, it turned out Paul had the day off work, so he drove out just for the day with a friend. As he arrived, he ran down to the beach and jumped straight in the water. It was sure nice to have him there, if only for the day. One really nice touch also, was from Kendall who is on a mission in the Phillipines. He wrote individual Wasa letters to everyone in the family. Looking forward to Wasa 2012!

I Swam the Dam, again!

Official results: 16:06 swim (750 m open water), 51:06 bike (26 km) and 26:22 run (5 k), 1:33:35, final, 4/53 women, 21/94 overall. So much fun!

I participated in the Magrath triathlon again today. It was a super fun event! The water was pretty chilly this year in the dam (late run off from the mountains this year). My swim time was almost identical to last year, just over 16 minutes for 750 m. I ran into lots of people this year swimming. I had a tough time with my first transition (swim to bike) as I went down the wrong aisle to find my bike, then was a little dizzy. In spite of that, though, my bike time (which includes both transitions) was much faster than last year at about 51 minutes for 26 km. This is due to having borrowed a good road bike. I also ran faster than last year, 5 km in 26:22. My overall time was about 1:33:30 (waiting for official results). My time put me 5th (I think) for women out of 53. I was super happy with that. For a while I thought I came first in my age group, but it turned out someone else who was faster had a problem with her timing chip. In total my time was about 8 minutes faster than last year.

Below are videos that Austin took of the race.