Dear Diary, Ten Takeaways From the Allatoona Sprint Triathlon.

Dear Diary, Ten Takeaways From the Allatoona Sprint Triathlon.

Last Sunday, I left my house at 4:45 a.m. and set the GPS for Lake Allatoona.  I hadn’t really trained all that vigorously but I thought, what the heck.

And since this blog will be my diary when my 98.75-year-old self lies in bed all day with nothing else to do but read about the crazy things I did —

Ten takeaways from the morning.

 

10.   I don’t mind being by myself.

Yes. An hour and a half drive by myself early on a Sunday morning is akin to a morning at the spa.

 

9.  When encouraged by attractive, athletic strangers I will do very goofy pre-race poses.  Okay. They don’t have to be athletic, attractive or a stranger to me. My ability to channel my inner, self-conscious 12-year-old self for photos never fails.

Some pre-race poses shot by my rackmate, pretty athletic Mary. Photo of pretty athletic Mary at end of post.

 

 

 

 

8.  Love my good luck Rickstrong t-shirt. Never fails to put me at ease.

 

Love you Rick. You are forever in my thoughts at these things. Especially, when going over what in the heck I forgot in my transition bag

 

 

7. Love my new transition gear bag.

 

Attending the Erma Bombeck Writer’s Conference in April was definitely a highlight of my year so far. Got to blog about that some day — so 98.75-year-old me will remember it.

 

 

Love my new gear bag this summer. Thanks @ebww #allatoonatri #writing #triathlon pic.twitter.com/WGOxzb7JPu

— Jamie Miles (@SouthMainMuse) June 29, 2014

 

6.  Love hanging with the older gals on the beach.

 

The 50 – 60 gals were the last wave to leave. So the yellow caps had time to chat on the sand. We are funny.

Plenty of jokes about giving us the yellow caps so the guards in the water could see us going under.

But  joking aside — this group is TOUGH.

 

 

 

5.   The swim.

Was awesome.

I’m a bit snobbish about swimming in these Georgia man-made backed up rivers they call lakes. They are usually clay mucky ucky. But Allatoona had sand on the beach, where we went in and where we exited. And the water seemed clearer. Or at least not like you were putting your face down into a thin pool of black-strap molasses. I LOVED this swim.

I was 7th out of 20 in my age group out of the water. For me, pretty awesome-sauce.

 

4.  Left it all on the bike.

 

Okay. I’m sort of stealing this photo. Why?

Because no one comes to take photos of me at these things. Which I actually don’t mind. See #10. But as a consequence I have no visual aids of actual race.

 

This was a 16 mile, hilly course. Halfway through I remember thinking, I could push and leave nothing for the run. Or I could not push and still have nothing for the run.

I pushed.

 

 

4.  I bonked on the run.

 

Do people still say that? Or is there some other term the young, hipster athletic crowd (with the 5 billion dollar bikes) uses to describe utterly falling apart, unable to move faster than a snail on crutches? Well a 5′ 9” snail on crutches. Trying to run but —

 

DYYYYINNNGGG.

 

 

 

 

3.  Finished.

 

 

Not sassy jazz hands.

Saggy jazz hands.

I slogged through the run somehow — and finished.

With JAZZ HANDS.

 

2.   Met Pretty Athletic Mary.  Who would be my bestest tri friend in a parallel universe.

 

 

Yes. Mary Gantt, happened to rack her bike next to mine. She was also 51 — and looked amazeballs. She was first out of the water — in age group — but had to wrap her foot because she had surgery on it earlier this year.

And this is the kicker. She missed placing by :08 seconds. Pooh for her. And having to stop and wrap that foot.

Look at her purty Cannondale. Look at her purty hair.

My hair looks like I got sucked into some  NOAA supersonic wind tunnel.

Great meeting her and her husband John. He’s training for the Ironman in Lousiville this August.

 

1.  There’s a 51 on the back of my calf.

 

 

Here I am walking around Ingles with a 51 on my calf. Starving, I pulled into the grocery store to make me a salad for lunch. It was then I realized I was walking around the store with my age written in black Sharpie on the back of my leg.

Honestly, I look at that and still think.

Not me.

Nope.

Oh, I guess I’ll eventually get used to it. About the time it’s time to write a 60 on there.

And BTW. I’m not officially 51 for a few more days.

 

It was a great race.

Except bonking on the run.

My next race is in 16 more days. I vowed to be better prepared for the run. Have I run since then????

Nope.
Have you ever bonked? At anything?

An 11th grade physics test maybe?