Let me start off by saying that the highlite of my weekend was meeting TriSooner - he is much less intimidating than he is online. Super cute and friendly and absolutely hilarious. It was great chatting with him. I meant to ask him to see his tattoo up close and personal, but I forgot.

Saturday: I left the house around 9 and followed a friend to Austin. We arrived at the race site for registration and packet pickup at 12:30 and OMG!!! what a rigamarol! It took 2 HOURS to get registered, get the packet, put stuff in all the bags they had for the 2-transition race, drop off the bike at one trasition and the run bag at the other. What a pain.

But, from there, it all got better.
My brother lives at UT so I spent the afternoon/evening with him.
This was the 1st time I have EVER spent the night away from my family, and boy, was it quiet in the hotel room. I took a bath, I got in bed with a cup of ice cream and promptly fell asleep by 7:30. Of course, I was awake by 2, tossing and turning, worrying about the gargantuan hills we drove all over on Saturday, that I would somehow need to get my butt over that day.

pre-race- we parked at the finish line and were bussed to the swim start and T1. I ate a pb&j sandwich, 2 bananas, a cup of coffee, sipped on gatorade all morning, a small powerbar, a 2 little cliff gummis before the swim. Damn, that's a lot of food.

Swim: the swim was mostly uneventful, got slapped in the face once or twice, kept swimming, I think I may have inadvertently grabbed a guy from the previous waves in b/t his legs, really, it was an accident.
swim time: 34:53

T1: had to shove my wetsuit, goggles and cap into a plastic bag so it, along with my bike could be transported to the finish, and that took a lot of time, but I don't have transition times yet. Needless to say, it was long.

Bike: I was SOOOO scared about biking up these hills. I was getting butterflies Saturday just driving over them. I have NO practical hill training on the bike even though I REALLY think spin class helped my strength and the Houston wind definitely worked it too. There were several steep ones, but most were rollers, not very much flat at all. BUT, I got over all of them, and my fear was that I would have to get off and walk my bike, but I rode the whole way...YAY!! There was a guy who kept passing me going up the hils who was doing that leaning maneuver where he was trying to pee. I was behind him like 5 times when he did that; he must've been having issues. I just wanted to get away from him b/c I thought he would spray me. I had water in my aero bottle which I kept refilling at the hand-ups and malto (thanks Britt) in my 2 other bottles. That was perfect. I felt great the whole time!

T2: Had to shove my bike stuff into my dumped out run gear bag, so more time, but got to do what I got to do. Probly longer than necessary.

Run: We ran through the arena and out onto the hilly course. Maybe people from other places wouldn't consider that a hilly course, but that's more hills than I do in a month. I stopped at the potty once on the way out, and only stopped to stuff my mouth with chips, water and coke at aid stations. I couldn't BELIEVE I was RUNNING up the hills. I was SO proud of myself. It was a party atmosphere with music and costumes. A lot of the course was out and back and you could see athletes all along the way coming back. I LOVE courses like that. I love seeing the faces of people who feel the same passion and sense of life from being out there and pushing themselves as I do. It was a 3 loop run. I was high on the 1st loop and ready to be done, but so happy on the 3rd. We ran into the arena finish line and had our names announced. It was very cool. I wasn't specific with my nutrition on the run. I just ate and drank what they had at the aid stations and that worked for me.
Run time: 2:02:24

Overall Time: 5:57:46
(my #1 goal was NOT to walk my bike over the hills: check
#2 goal: under 7 hours:check)
I may not have pr'd the HIM, but I am SO proud of my performance because of the hills. I completely surprised myself in what I could accomplish if I want it bad enough.
SOOO, next stop: sign up for IMAZ next month...WOOHOO!

oh, and note to self, when there is more than a 2 hr drive home after a long race, stay an extra night.