Saturday, June 02, 2007

Triathlete

triathlete
I will write more later (after my parents' visit, my daughter's dance concert, the article I have to write and the report that's due... all the real life things that I've tried to balance all these weeks and months...) but the bullet version is: I finished. It was really, really hard - way harder than I thought. I was wondering, by the way - what's harder, giving birth or running a triathlon? They have a lot in common in my case: nearly a year to prepare... 2 hours of "pushing" (2:07, in the case of the triathlon, 3rd from last)... and a great feeling in the end!

One other thought to all this: I didn't give enough attention to the mental side of this. The hardest part was the open-water swim - the minutes I spent clinging to the side of each boat along the route while I overcame panic attacks definitely added to my total time (and took a lot out of me - parts of me I was definitely missing on the run!) More later, but you get the idea!

Added: from the online race results :
420 HANSELL JENNY SHARON CT 42F F40-44 [total time] 2:07:54 [swim place and time} 430 30:04 [bike place and time} 415 0:52:43 [total after bike} 1:22:47 [run place and time] 410 0:45:07 There were 422 finishers (out of 560 entrants - I'm not sure how there could be only 6 or 8 listed as DNF!) I and one other woman who swam boat to boat with me were dead last in the swim. I was a bit surprised that I didn't place a bit higher in the bike as I was churning along pretty good! But pleasantly surprised that I did as well in the run as I did, considering how utterly whipped I was by then (and how HOT and HUMID it was!)

12 comments:

RUTH said...

Note the words"overcame the panic attacks"...you did it Jenny, you finished!!! What an achievement; now you go and do all your fab Mum/Daughter/Writer stuff and revel in the glory of being a WINNER!!!!! You worked so hard for this and for such a great cause...there's no stopping you now!
{{HUGS}}
Rx
p.s. if there's a choice I may have to go for giving birth...at least there's a lot of laying down...LOL

LBTEPA said...

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE A LEGEND!!

isa said...

Good for you, Jenny! What an accomplishment!

Audrey said...

Wow!!!!! Well done Jenny, what a great achievement..I think Id definitely opt for giving birth if I had to chose

Duane said...

Great job triathlete! Yay for you!
More details and pics please (as soon as you are rested)!

Ruth said...

Wow, Jenny, congratulations! You did it! What a great feeling it must be!

Unknown said...

GREAT JOB! You finished!!! WooooHooooo!!!!!

Icarus said...

Brilliant! You started, you finished, you DID IT!! And was this how you looked at the end? I hope so, because it's fantastic, Looking so rightfully pleased. Forget tripathlon,just running the cross-countries in inter-school competitions, no way did I ever feel like grinning. Throwing up, yes. So I know just what you have had to put into this. Around 2 pm yesterday afternoon our time, I was trying to imagine how you were doing. You must be super-fit if this is your wind-down agenda!

Herself, the GeekGirl said...

Congratulations! Did your daughter get to see you do this? Will you do another? I wish I'd gotten into athletics while my daughter was still young. They say it's so good for a girls' self esteem to do these, and I know some of the events here have "children's triathlons" after the adult event.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations, Jenny! Great job! Linda

KrissyGo! said...

*backflips* *backflips*

AWESOME! Congratulations! You must feel like a GO-zillion bucks!

The inevitable question: when's your next race? :D

Anonymous said...

Jenny, many congrats to you! You are an inspiration to me. Thanks for sharing all the stuff you went through because it really helps us triathlon first-timers to feel like we're not alone. You rock. Hawk