I've Never Had the Best Sense of Direction: ChelanMan Sprint Tri (the swim)

With this year being my big running comeback, I focused the majority of my energy on getting race-ready for the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon (you guys may have read about it once or thrice).  However, there was this little voice in my head that whispered over the winter and spring months that I had signed up for a race in July.

My feeble attempts at whistling couldn't drown out the voice. 

True to form, I planned way ahead to make sure I would be ready for both races.  (Ok, not really.)  Around May-ish, I started saying: 

Around June-ish, we actually did start going to the pool every week. At which point I started saying:

And by "we" I definitely meant "me" "I".

I'd been fortunate to get in a swim with my Swimmer Family,

and one lesson with my friend Erika.

They were both very helpful, but before I knew it, July was upon me.  Two days before my race I did a quick open water swim in the wetsuit and called myself "ready".

The day before my race, Dr. Tim and I cheered on Ann Marie in her half marathon.

That same day, TriGuy did his first HALF IRONMAN!

We were all pretty impressed.

Race morning, I woke up confident in the knowledge that I could not have been more prepared unless I had actually trained properly.

I placed myself at the back of the group to avoid getting stuck in the washing machine of flailing arms and legs on the 800 metre swim.  (That's what they call strategery.)  The adorable race director counted down my wave start and we were off!

Well, I waited for the crowd to thin and then I made my move!

Did I mention I tend to swim to the right?

I found that I was actually faster than some of the other swimmers dog-paddlers and was quickly upon them.  This caused me to stop, breathe heavily, and try to find a hole to swim through.  After inevitably swimming too long without looking up, I found myself off-course.

Seriously.  Every time I looked up.

I actually added 5 minutes to last year's swim time. 

But on a good note, I probably swam a whole kilometre so...yay?

I tore into T1 (translation: transition area for the first switcheroo from the swim to the bike) and noticed Dr. Tim and TriGuy looking toward the water for me.  I ran to the edge of transition, calling TriGuy's name.

Just when I was going to give up, he and Dr. Tim both looked my way.  I immediately struck a pose.

And then,  I just stood there for some reason waiting for TriGuy to take my picture.

A picture he was clearly not aware he was supposed to take.

Seeing that I was frozen in the moment, TriGuy offered some incentive to get me moving again.

Huh?  Oh, right!

With my brain rebooted, I skipped off to my bike rack to prepare for the next leg.

*As usual I'm posting each leg of the race separately so I don't create the longest blog post in the history of the universe.  Check back soon for the bike portion of the race!

UPCOMING POSTS: AUTHOR Q&A (for a humour novel!), CHELANMAN SPRINT TRI BIKE AND RUN LEGS, THINGS I THINK ABOUT ON MY LONG RUNS

Check out the Yeah Write SpeakEasy Grid for some other great posts this week!