Lake Stevens Triathlon, September 8th 2012

We gathered a group of friends interested in doing their first triathlon and had them join us for a fun end-of-the season race.  

Please excuse the extreme tardiness of this post.  Ordinary Endurance’s first group triathlon experience at the Lake Stevens Triathlon was so much fun I wanted some of that emotion to settle so I can report objectively on an otherwise fun and successful day!

The morning started like most in September around here.  It was nice, but colder than what we all were used to after a warm summer.  The sky was clear, there was a little dew on the grass, but not a ripple to be found on the lake. 

All twelve of us showed up with plenty of time to pump up those tires, organize and re-organize our transition areas, let the butterflies almost educe vomiting, and then wait. 

Promptly at 8:00 am, the boldest two of our group entered the water to begin the Olympic distance race.  This required a one-mile swim, a 25-mile bike ride and a 6-mile run!  They were going to be on the road for most of the morning. 

The rest of us then had another half an hour to wait for our start time.  We went back to the transition area to again, reorganize it.  We also walked down to the water to test the temp and thankfully it was comfortable.  And with about five minutes to go, we slowly started to get into the water. 

After a few minutes of treading water, BANG!!!  The gun goes off and our race begins!  I was swimming with all the males doing the sprint distance race and immediately there was a race to get to the front and center.  The course was nice, there was only one turn making it an easy out and back swim.  I’m glad I wasn’t wearing my wetsuit; I probably would have over heated. 

The bike course was great; despite the hilly area there were not too many hills.  And, it was an out and back so we all got to see each other heading the other way and cheer each other on.

The run course was just as nice as the bike; it follows along the lakeshore and only has one small hill.  And just like the bike course, it was an out and back so we all got to see where each other were at and size up our competition for one final push to the finish line.  Needless to say, there were plenty of high fives going around. 

The finish had a great atmosphere to it.  Tons of family and friends had made the trip out to see so many of our group complete their first triathlon.  One by one we all came in, the pain just not strong enough to override the smiles on everyone’s face. 

The ten of us that did the sprint hung around to cheer on our Olympic triathletes who where not that far behind us.  They too finished with big grins on their faces and had a few stories about the longer course to share.  We also stayed long enough to watch the awards ceremony and were surprised to see that of the twelve of us, we were taking home five top three finishes in our respective groups!  For so many first timers, we were not expecting that at all!  

All in all, it was a very successful day.  Everyone finished, everyone had a ton of fun, the weather was perfect, and nobody pulled a hammy.  Not much more you could ask for!  And, afterwards, pretty much everyone had been bitten by the triathlon bug and were bummed that it was the end of the season.  Tara and I advised to really enjoy your off-season and come back early spring hungry as ever to pick up where we left off.  We’ll see if everyone actually follows those directions though…  I have a hard time thinking they will as we already had two friends from that day commit to an even bigger triathlon next summer.  More on that to follow in the coming months.  But in the meantime, check out the photos from the day here!