I’m still flying on a bit of a high from Sunday’s race and I don’t want to let it go, though as I said to one of my Team Fight teammates as we walked back to retrieve our bikes from transition after the last racer finished, I was already starting to feel some of the post-race letdown.\u00a0 After all, we had trained for so long, and this race was the pinnacle of my season.\u00a0 Plus there was the added fun of meeting so many amazing Team Fight teammates and spending time with them.<\/p>\n
Of course, I plan to stay with the team, and I am definitely picking up Thursday night swims again when the pool re-opens next month.\u00a0 So I will see all of my new friends soon!<\/p>\n
There were some amazing, inspiring athletes out there on the course.\u00a0 As I was going up the “Yes U Can” hill on the course (local bikers will know what I mean), there were plenty of cyclists walking their bikes up the hill.\u00a0 And then there was a woman who was running as hard as she could, pushing her bike up the hill.\u00a0 She might not have been able to ride up, but she was certainly going to get up the hill as fast as possible.\u00a0 She definitely got lots of cheers from other riders.<\/p>\n
Another big inspiration was my friend Jaquisha.\u00a0 When I first met her at swim practice, she was a struggling swimmer.\u00a0 Still learning, but determined.\u00a0 Absolutely determined.\u00a0 She improved and improved through the season, but she was definitely nervous come race day. We knew she could do it, even if she swam from kayak to kayak. (For the non-triathletes out there, there are kayaks and paddleboards out in the water for safety – you can legally grab onto them and hold on, they just can’t propel you forward.\u00a0 Something I didn’t need this race, but always nice, even if just a place to grab on while fixing your goggles after a run-in with another swimmer.)\u00a0 But she was definitely scared.\u00a0 I saw her on Saturday and she was clearly stressing out after looking at the swim course.\u00a0 I reminded her that she could do it.<\/p>\n
Race morning, my wave was 12 minutes before hers, so I had no idea what was going on in her race.\u00a0 While I was on the run, I asked one of the Team Fight hill runners (yes, we had people to run us up the awful hills) if she had made it out of the water, and no one knew.\u00a0 After I finished, I asked again, and still no one knew.\u00a0 Turns out, at that point, she was still in the water.<\/p>\n
She made it through the swim!\u00a0 It took her over two hours, but she conquered her fear and finished that swim.\u00a0 Now she just had to bike and run.\u00a0 She’s a good cyclist and an amazing runner, but she still had to make the cutoffs.<\/p>\n
As we were cheering runners in, we were told that she had been pulled from the bike course.\u00a0 I refused to believe it, as did many others.\u00a0 We wanted proof.\u00a0 We needed to find her race number and find out from an official.\u00a0 Thankfully, she had photographed her race bib and gear and posted it on Facebook (like so many of us).\u00a0 But we still didn’t know what was up.\u00a0 There was no live tracking, so we had no idea where she was.<\/p>\n
We wouldn’t give up. So we waited.\u00a0 And all of a sudden, there was a huge rush of Team Fight yellow down the hill towards the finish line.\u00a0 And we knew.\u00a0 She was coming.\u00a0 She came tearing into the finish line and I got chills and teared up.\u00a0 This finish felt better than my own finish.\u00a0 She was absolutely incredible.\u00a0 She took something she feared and she fought for it.\u00a0 Maybe she wasn’t the fastest and maybe it wasn’t the prettiest, but she did it.<\/p>\n
She’s really humble about it all and says it wasn’t due to her, that it was due to all of the awesome people around her, but I think she’s pretty amazing.\u00a0 I don’t think that I could have gotten into the water with that kind of uncertainty.\u00a0 She’s seriously an inspiration and I am lucky she’s my friend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m still flying on a bit of a high from Sunday’s race and I don’t want to let it go, though as I said to one of my Team Fight teammates as we walked back to retrieve our bikes from transition after the last racer finished, I was already starting to feel some of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[115],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n