I am a triathlete.

And triathlete chicks are hot (or so a tshirt says).

Susan is here this weekend!! I picked her up at the airport and we promptly went for vodka limeades at Phil's. Later that evening, we went to dinner at the Boathouse at Rockett's Landing. I wish that the camera had captured the awesome view of the city that night, but you'll have to settle for just us.

Saturday morning we put Susan's bike together (she shipped it from NY) and then went to the farmers' market to pick up fresh pasta. After all, carbs were in order for peak performance.

We spent a good part of the afternoon picking up tri packets and shopping (Hello, Anthropologie!), and then came home to make a delicious summer pasta dinner...fresh shrimp, squash and okra! (Don't worry, Hunter ate steak and no veggies).

5:15 on Sunday came early. Here Susan and I are (a little bleary-eyed) in the parking lot at 5:45. The race started at 7, but we didn't enter the pool until 8:20.

And for all you tri virgins, I took a picture of my "body markings". Because you can't swim with a paper race #, you have to get marked before the race. They wrote our numbers on both arms and both thighs...

And then marked our age on one calf. This is not helpful when you see the 40-65 aged participants zooming by you at some point in the race. Oh, and the 29 apparently didn't mean anything, because in the official results I was entered into the 30-35 category. Sigh.

Susan and I decided not to post our results for you, but we do have a few pointers, in case you're contemplating a sprint triathlon.

1. Train, train, train. And train on the terrain of the race. This race was EXTREMELY hilly. I only biked on flat ground and ran on flat ground. This made today a little bit harder. And the run was honestly the hardest part, running up hills and on grass.

2. Your bike is IMPORTANT. I was cheap and lazy when it came to my bike, and I paid for it today. My in-laws graciously offered me a French racing bicycle and I seized the offer. However, I was too lazy to have the bike checked out at the bike shop, and I found out TODAY (yes, today) that the gears didn't work. OOPS! So I rode the rolling hills without any gears. Oh, and because the gears didn't work, the chain came off right as we started up the first hill, and I had to have some nice police man help me put it back on. (And I'm convinced that impacted my time. :) ). So invest in a good bike.

3. Practice your swimming so that you can clock a 6 min time and start with all of the fast people. We learned today that other ladies GROSSLY underestimated their times, which bottlenecked the swim and caused all sorts of passing in the lanes. We saw # 22 start and because she was so slow, 20 other people got out of the pool before her. Not cool.

4. Practice your transitions. If Susan and I were going to do this again, I think I might pay a little bit more attention to the transition area (a roped off area where you store your bike and stop in between each segment).  As we looked at the results, we noticed that some people only were in that area for 1 minute between segments...that's fast! We took a bit longer. :)

5. Have a water bottle on your bike. We were DYING of thirst after the bike ride and then spent at least a minute in the transition area drinking water to rehydrate.

6. Have fun. I loved that this tri was only women, and for the most part, everyone seemed to be relaxed and excited. In the (supposed) under 30 category, I would say that Susan and I were among the youngest....and most of the other ladies were 37+. I made Susan promise that we'll do one again when we're 40 (at that moment the lady in front of me turned around and said "It'll be here before you know it"--while I'm sure she's right, I'd like a lot to happen before I'm 40).

I'm impressed if you're still reading, as this post turned out to be rather lengthy. Overall it was a really fun event and I've had a ball with Susan here! Wish tomorrow weren't Monday!!