The Perfect Day - A good friend, a race, a dinner date, and gelato!

I had the honor to do a sprint triathlon today with my friend Chelsea - it was her first race and she loved it - yaaaay a new triathlete! She was smiling during the race, make it through without drowning, falling off the bike, or feeling like death on the run! I finished first in my age group out of 27 girls and 4th overall with a time of 1:00:06 - just 7 seconds off from sub-1 hour. That was my best finish ever in a triathlon - I've never won my age group before or come within the top 5 overall. The splits aren't posted yet, but my run was 21-something and my bike average was around 19mph. The swim was a really nice 400m - I didn't use a wetsuit and the water was perfect. I felt like I kept a good line and I tried to swim aggressively. The bike was good - only 8 miles so I pedaled as hard as I could. It was hilly and I mainly caught people on the uphills and I stayed aero on the downhills. I ate two honey stingers and drank a sip of water and that was it. T2 was slow because I forgot my race belt (I forgot alot of things today - my SPF85 sunscreen, my good goggles, race number belt) so I had to pin the number on my shorts - boo. My legs felt tired - it was obvious that I have been skipping my weekly speedwork sessions far too much. I kept a low 7 min per mile pace, even though it was hilly. I passed a few people on the run and overall I was really happy that I was doing the sprint race, not the international race. I think I'm a little tired from doing two halfs one week apart. I shouldn't kid myself, I am not Hillary Biscay and will not be doing full ironmans back to back anytime soon. But I'm really happy with the race and I'm looking forward to taking the next three weeks off from training since I will be in Nepal starting early next week!

Chelsea and I had a great day together - I'm going to miss her when she moves to Mississippi. Mark and I had a great date night with an early dinner at Faccia Luna in Clarendon and then we topped it off with gelato - it reminded me of Nice. I love this straight up thug town of Arlington!