Nugget's First Tri

Nugget completed his (or her) first triathlon. If Nugget is a he, he managed to sneak into an all womens tri. Every year Austin is one of the host cities to Danskin Triathlon which is a fundraiser for breast cancer. My girlfriend, Karyn (6 months pregnant & breast cancer and chemo survivor) and I had talked about doing it somewhat jokingly several months ago but I thought surely I would be way too big to think about it. A few weeks ago, I looked at the registration and found out that it was still open (the race usually fills up at least a month prior). I emailed her, now even more jokingly, and asked if she was still interested. We know the race director, also a cancer survivor, who Karyn immediately emailed and responded to me that we were in and registration fees were waived. First I thought, what have I gotten myself into? And then I thought, well I am not THAT big - and no I have not shrunk since my last picture. So after taking my bike in to have the handle bars raised as much as they could go, so that I could reach them more comfortably, I was set.

The start times for the swim typically go in “waves” and for this race the waves are in order age, oldest to youngest, 4-5 minutes between each wave. If we started in our age division that means we would start around 8:00-8:30 with a couple of hundred other women in our age bracket. Or we could sign up in the Elite division, where we somewhat legitimately raced previously, go first at 7:00 am and only start with about 30 women. So of course our big bellies signed up Elite. We picked up our race packets yesterday and the guy at registration kindly asked us if we knew that we had signed up in the Elite division. "Why? Don't we look Elite?" He didn’t say much more but we were sure to give him a hard time.

Karyn and I met up this morning, a bit late and cutting it close to the start time but we weren’t racing and really didn't care. After standing in the bathroom line, we headed down to the start which was supposed to running late. Apparently, it started on time. The 4th wave had already started and we had missed the Elite start. Oh well.... So we jumped in with the next wave, about 20-25 minutes late which added 20-25 minutes to our overall time. There were a few more people than I cared for in the water at that point but I stayed to the outside and practiced my meditated lamaze breathing and met Karyn at the finish of the swim (she kindly waited for me). I was ready to get out of the water. Then we hopped on our bikes and the 4 of us started pedaling. We had someone, who actually was racing, yell at us as she went by that we were not supposed to be riding side by side. In years past this would have driven us crazy, but, again, today we didn’t care. The bike went by really fast and didn’t get too many weird looks. It wasn't until the run that "is she?" and "go mom!" was frequently heard. Who are they talking to? Still getting used to the "mom" thing. Reminded people that we were both “moms" so as to attract more attention to Karyn’s belly - she is hardly showing and her belly is not sticking out like my obvious melon. We finished the run running and had a great time - it was a perfect way to end Nugget's first Tri.

I'll post pics as soon as I get them back and air brush them.