An Olympic Tri & Saying Goodbye

The past week and a half flew by. I can’t believe my three weeks at home is already over and I’m back in Pittsburgh. I have a “blog list” of all of the things I need to tell you about (including a recap of my first race of the year!), but first I want to tell you about The Boy’s first ever Olympic Triathlon.

I headed down to Knoxville last weekend to spend time with all of our friends there, visit Peyton Manning’s picture on the side of Neyland Stadium, and most importantly: cheer on Justin at his biggest race of the year. He’s been doing triathlons for a little over a year, but this was his first Olympic Tri.

On Friday night, we hydrated, ate at Chuy’s, and had FroYo….maybe not the best pre-race strategy, but it seems to work for us (more on that later). We went to sleep early because we had to be up bright and early to head over to Kingsport, TN.

I ran a warm up mile with Justin and then creepily took pictures while he stretched. He probably wouldn't admit this to you all (but it’s my blog & I’m telling the story), but he was really nervous! He hadn't ever swam the race distance in open water. The swim was 1.5K…an out and back. The course wasn't really a spectator course, but I was able to run along the shore line and keep an eye on my guy.

He's swimming the start here - I couldn't get a good picture during the race

Ok - Let’s be honest – I had no idea which green cap he was, but as long as none of the green caps disappeared under water, I knew we were good :) I managed to get 1.5 miles in during the swim and make it back to the finish line to see Justin come out of the water in 36:12.

He then took off on a 40K bike ride (just under 25 miles) so I had some time to kill. I took off on the run course and got some miles in. It was a good course and I was taking it easy. Before I new it, I had run 3.5 miles, bringing my total for the day to 6 miles. 6 MILES! That is officially my longest day of the year. I gave myself a pat of the back and then grabbed the camera to head over to the transition zone.

Justin finished the bike 1:18:48 and took off on the 10K run. His swim time and his bike time were a bit slower than he had planned, but his main goal was to finish and he felt great going into the run. I stretched (a lot) and then walked the mile towards the finish line (my legs were starting to feel those 6 miles at this point haha). I caught Justin at the 5 mile mark where he yelled “my left foot is completely numb!” I yelled back something along the lines of “rub some dirt in it, ya wuss!” and took off to meet him at the finish line.

The picture is literally mid-yell about the numb foot

He KILLED it on the run – 47:42 and finished in a total time of 2:44:55 – well under his goal of 2:50:00. He was 7^th in his age group and got an awesome visor to prove it. I am so proud of him!

"Get a picture of my number" ...yea...the number...sure

On a separate note, my 6 miles was under an hour so I am proud of me too :)

The rest of our Saturday was spent at Justin’s fantasy football draft and a cookout for his Economics department. Suddenly, it was Sunday and I packed up the car for that loooooong 9 hour drive. I am so ready for 2015 to roll around, you have no idea.

What did you do last weekend?

Any thoughts on why Justin’s foot goes numb while running long distances?