{ trinona }

Trinona tri weekend got kicked off the second Saturday of this month when Chop and I headed to Winona to pick up the race packet.

I should also rewind and say that I had no idea that Winona was 2.5 hours away! When I decided to register for this tri, it was an add-on to two others I was already doing. To complete the series and register for this one, it was only $30 more (and they are typically about triple that). I asked Chop how far Winona was and he said "I think about an hour and 15 min". And I clicked register.

A few weeks before the tri I was thinking I would just drive down that morning for the race. Then about a week out I realized that it was 2.5 hours away and I would be getting up at 3:00am to drive. Of course it was too late to book a hotel in Winona so I was able to score a Priceline hotel in Rochester (about 40 minutes away) for only $35. And Grandma and Grandpa C came to the rescue and said they would come stay with O and S so Chop and I could head down there Saturday. Whew!

So we loaded up and hit the road.

All week the forecast for Sunday was not looking good. And the meteorologists were right this time. We woke up at 4:45am in Rochester to pouring rain. I tried to ignore it and choke down my go-to pre workout meal......almond butter toast (Justin's almond butter is addicting!) and banana.

Thankfully as we headed into Winona an hour later it was just sprinkling. Though the clouds over the bluffs didn't look nice. 

First hiccup of the day came when I pulled my bike out of the car. Instead of using the bike rack we had put it in the back seat of the car to keep it dry. To do so we had to take the front tire off. Well, when I took the front wheel off at the hotel I must have loosened it too much and the spring and bolt cap fell off. We tore apart the backseat hoping it was there but no luck. I, of course, panicked and then headed to transition in hopes that there would be a bike mechanic. Gear West to the rescue as they had a van there and kindly gave me replacement parts. Whew!

Then it was off to get my transition area set up and ready to go.

As I headed down to where the swim start was, I was relieved to find that the setup allowed for being able to get in just minutes before my wave went so I wouldn't have to stand around freezing for long. And the bonus to a cold, windy, wet morning? At 65ish degrees, the water didn't feel "that" bad!

They announced just before my wave went off that several swimmers already had to be rescued/pulled from the water. They suspected it was because they were not accustomed to swimming through weeds. Eck!

Minutes later my wave was off into the water. I managed to stay calm through the swim, though I felt pretty restricted by the full sleeve wetsuit I was wearing (I think it was a smidge too small).

Running out of the water and up to transition, I knew I was in trouble. In the picture below I should already have my wetsuit down around my waist.

But after tugging and tugging on the cord, it wouldn't come down. Yup, it was stuck. Would. Not. Budge. Chop was thankfully standing on the other side of the fence from the transition area and I went over to him to see if he could get it. Nothing. Still stuck. At this point I was watching other women from my wave come in, grab their bikes, and ride away. I might have sworn a few times. The teeth on the zipper had separated towards the top and it wouldn't slide past that spot. With some luck, Chop got the zipper pull to come unattached and then he was able to just manually pull the zipper teeth apart all the way down.

I was a little shaky from that but hurriedly put on my helmet and off I went on the bike. It was windy and the course was mostly rolling hills.

Heading into transition from the bike to run, I had no idea where I was within my age group. I figured I had lost some time in my first transition and I needed to make up for it. Quick change into running gear and then off to run.

My toes were freezing from the bike which made running interesting but I reminded myself of my mantra "be comfortable with the uncomfortable". I didn't feel terrible but also not as good as I felt in some of my training runs. Regardless, I was super thankful to see the finish line!

After finishing I had no idea where my time put me within my age group or wave. We headed for the food tent - turns out a chocolate chip cookie and lay's potato chips are the perfect post race snack! We then headed to look at the results they had started posting. I found my name with a 1/20 next to it and turned to Chop and said "I think I got first place". There may have also been an f-bomb in there as well. I was doubting the place number though as I knew there were more than 20 women in my wave.

After checking back about 10 minutes later they had updated the sheets and it now accurately showed 1/34, meaning I really had gotten first place in my age group. I was super surprised and thrilled at the same time and even more so after realizing that I made the top 10 overall women's list for all of the age groups.

Not only did I get a very heavy pyramid with the Trinona logo in it, I also took home a bottle of wine!

1 tri down and 4 more to go this summer! My hip pain flared a little even before the tri so I'm hoping to get back to a pain free state but we'll see. This weekend on Sunday will be a good test at Graniteman St. Cloud!

Sorry for the lengthy post.......it wasn't particularly for any of you readers but more for my own race recap record purposes. Oh, and a huge thanks to Chop for being a race day sherpa and for putting up with me being gone for an hour or two in the mornings to train!