Lone Star Part 2: The Sprint!

On Saturday, I woke everyone up nice and early at 4:30 am and the house started to come to life. Once we had gotten some coffee going and everyone had gotten ready, we loaded the cars and headed up the road 5 mile to Moody Gardens. I was rushing to get my kid to the Kid's Camp that started at 6 am and I forgot the waivers sitting on the breakfast bar of the beach house. At least they had extra copies for goof-balls like me who forgot them. Once I got the kid squared away, I walked over to the Transition Area. Everyone was getting their transition area set up and getting nervous. Here is part of the gang that I was able to find in the Transition.

I headed over to the Swim Start with Louis and Angela who drove down to take pictures and grill some steaks for us later that afternoon. Angela was on the TEAM last year and Louis is a super "bike wrench" and helps me out a lot on group rides and for squaring everyone away on bike fit and simple maintenance. Once we headed to the swim area, we found more of the TEAM and they were all pretty nervous. I gave them some words of wisdom that the swim was the shortest part and then they could climb on the bike. We made our way back towards the Swim Exit after the Pro/Elite men took off. As I was waiting for my peeps to exit the water, I heard someone call my name. I turned around and had a Blogger Meet-Up!!! Greyt-Times from Iowa had driven down for the race with some other gals and she was watching the Sprint and getting geared up for the half-IM distance on the next day.

Louis, Angela, and I moved to the finish area and waited for Ryan to blow by. Ryan is one of my TEAM mentors and he is scary fast. Last year, this was his first triathlon and he did really well finishing in 1:16 and coming in 77th overall. Not bad for a first triathlon and a field of over 800 athletes. This past year he has gotten faster and we were waiting to see what he was going to do. Ryan ran his first 1/2 Marathon back in January and he ran a 1:27 with two bathroom breaks! Dang that's fast!!! So we waited patiently and we did not have to wait for long when I saw him come around the bend. I yelled at him to pick it up because someone was closing in on him fast. He crossed the line in 1:05, 3rd in his age group and only missing 2nd place by 8 seconds, and 19th overall. He got a really nice award! I had one of my Rookies come in 2nd overall in the Men's First Timer division. Terry is just a little competitive...HA! He is very competitive. He wanted to race in the First Timer's division so that he would have a better chance at finishing well. Terry did spectacular!!! Not only is he a gifted runner but he has such great potential as a triathlete. He finished in 1:15!!! I am so proud of him. The rest of the group did fantastic as well. They all commented on how they freaked out on the open water swim. I told them that it was normal to do that and at one of my triathlons where I had my first wetsuit swim I did the "I cannot breath" panic attack as well.


After the awards ceremony and picking up the kid from the Moody Garden's Kid's Camp, we headed back to the Beach House for relaxation and BBQ. I had to get my bike ready for the next day and there were five others plus Super Ryan who were going to be racing the 1/4 IM distance the next day.

Part 3 is on it's way! WHOO HOO!!! Coach Liz's amazing race is next!!!