In June of 2007, my oldest brother started doing triathlons. He said they were addicting and he loved them. By the end of the summer, both of my brothers were doing tris and really enjoying them. My oldest brother even signed up for IronMan2008(2.4 swim, 112 bike, 26.6 run) In the winter, I went to a family event for their triclub and was told I had crossed over to their side and I had to do a tri. So in May I decided to sign up for a supersprint- 425yd swim, 7.5mi bike, and 1.5mi run.
I played soccer all spring so I wasn’t way out of shape. In June, I started training more. Swimming wasn’t too hard to do because I work at a pool. I love to bike so again that wasn’t too hard. Running… that is a whole different story- it never has been my favorite thing- I didn’t have much of a will to go running and therefore didn’t train enough.
Before I knew it, the end of July was here and so was race day. I got up at 5am and ate breakfast (cliff bar, apple, and dt mountain dew. I made sure all my dstuff was where I needed it: "bike"meter, "run"meter, pumppak, juice in bike, tabs in pumpak, meter and glucagon with mom. We left the hotel at 5:30am. I started at 8 with a bg of 105-success #1- I ate 2 tabs and set a temp basal of 50%. We talked to the race officials to see if it would be ok for my mom to hold my pump while I swam and hand it to me while I ran to T1. They were totally fine with it- success #2- I was really nervous about swimming 425 in a lake especially because I had never done an ow swim. One of my brothers’ teammates told me "Swim slow, swim very slow. If I see you having any problems, I’m jumping in and swimming with you!” Apparently you’re suppose to swim in a square, but I definitely didn’t do so great at going straight and proceeded to add a bit of length to the swim. After the swim- I hooked my pump up, checked my cgms, grabbed my inhaler and took off on my bike. I’m a slow swimmer but a fast biker so I had a lot of people to catch and pass which felt nice. I love biking and didn’t want to get off my bike when I got back. I racked my back and started my run/walk. I checked the cgms a few times and noticed a bit of a drop. I was going to test to see where I was actually at- dead batteries great- I grabbed a cup of Gatorade at the aide station to be on the safe side. The run was supposed to be 1.5 mi, but somehow they lost something and put the sign where they thought it should be… well they were WAY off. It ended up being 2.7 mi- I was so confused at why it was taking so long, but I finished-success #3- I ended with a bg of 101-success #4- I had a lot of trouble with the asthma so I said “inhaler!” to mom, sat for around until I started breathing more normal, then went and ate lunch with the brothers.
One of my goals was to have decent bg control. During the race my bgs were great, but next time I need to work on post race numbers. 3 hours post race I was 162, but figured I would crash if I corrected so I didn’t. 1 hour later… 36. I was 50-70 most of the day/night, but recovered the next day.
I can’t wait to do another tri, it was so much fun! “You have the bug” is what my brothers/ teammates said. Their teammates are awesome- anytime they saw me, they encouraged me. They helped me keep going strong when I otherwise might have slowed up. My time was 1:23:58- slow but that’s ok with me. My goals were to finish, have decent bgs, and have fun. I accomplished them all Next time I will train more and work on going faster. I can’t wait for next time to come…
