Well folks, the race is officially behind me.  What an incredible weekend at St. Anthony’s Triathlon in St. Petersburg, FL.  Noelle and her dad and his better half, Jeanette, all joined to cheer me and my teammates on.  Unfortunately, the swim portion was CANCELED due to rough seas.  It’s probably a good thing; a couple years ago someone drowned when the water was this choppy.  Although my teammates and I were bummed to say the least, we quickly got over it and adapted to just the bike/run “duathlon”.

I gotta admit, it was tough to finish.  The bike was actually really enjoyable with the flatness and the breeze. I finished that in 1 hour and 21 minutes, and tried to stay between 18-20 mph.  I also managed to dismount and transition to the run safely, sans accident.  I mentally prepared myself during the last couple miles…”slow down, unlock shoes early enough, look left/right…” Sad.  My transition times were good 2-3 mins.  The 10k run was tougher than I thought with the heat, but I paced myself well and finished Just under my 54 minute goal (53-something).  Someday I’ll get below 50 minutes.

As expected the entire experience was pretty moving, especially after everything I went through.  The night before, we went to a TNT Inspiration Dinner.  A new TNT teammate/fellow ‘honored teammate’, Kait, delivered a rousing, motivational talk in front of nearly 1,000 people that got us prepared for the race the next day.  Kait and I are both lymphoma survivors who went through treatment in our mid 20’s. NOT a time you’d expect to go through such a rough health patch.  But both of us came out with flying colors.  It was fun having both of us train and do the race together.  Not every team has honored teammates who actually compete/train with the team.

Following the race, we had a TNT victory party.  I went all out with my teammates and celebrated being done with 5 months of training and completing the race.  Some great comraderie.   At 4am, we finally called it a night and headed back to DC Monday morning.

I’m still reveling in the afterglow – and have even signed up for another race.  I’ll be doing a non-TNT race in June with some of my TNT buddies. More later on that.  And I DO plan on doing St. A’s next season with TNT. So be ready to support me once again!  You can still donate on my current page until the end of May:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/anttry09/cotepka

And our pics from the weekend – just see the Flickr link in the margin, or click here.

Thank you all for your support – messages, donations, thoughts, etc.  And it’s what this blog was originally all about!

National Capital Area Chapter