Memphis In May Olympic Triathlon and More Fun Stuff

This year, I participated in the Memphis in May Triathlon - the Olympic distance. It was my second triathlon and the longest distance I've raced, thus far. Since, I hadn't been swimming or running as much as I should have, I was a bit nervous. My goal was to finish in 3:30 (that's an ok finish, but the fast people finish in under 3 hours). One of my best friends from college, Leslie, raced with me. Well, she finished almost 30 minutes before me...anyway, our race numbers were one off. We tried to capture a picture showing off our race numbers, but it didn't work.

This was about 5am, the day of the race. We're sleepy - eyed and bushy tailed! You can't really make out our numbers written on our legs & arms, but, oh well. Incidentally, Leslie cracked me up when she asked me if I'd gotten taller since college. Haha, I wish!




The race conditions were awful. It rained some during the night, then started sprinkling as we waited to start. Someone saw a bolt of lightening and I told myself that the race administrators wouldn't let us race in dangerous conditions. Well, when I saw a bolt of lightning strike on the other side of the hotel, DURING MY SWIM, I just knew that I would die that day. In the water. By electrocution.

I survived the swim during the lightning storm and started the bike portion in a complete downpour. The streets were slick and it was hard to see, but I made it through. I might have gotten lost, but it was no biggie. Then I headed out for the run. I'm super slow. A newly made friend passed me around mile 5 and, with concern on her face, asked if I was ok. I responded, "yeah, I'm fine. This is how I run...this is my pace; I'm just slow." My degree of slowness, coupled with her thinking that there MUST be something wrong, kinda made giggle inside. It was nice of her to be concerned, though.

When I saw mile 6, I started sprinting the last 0.2 miles to the finish. After a couple of minutes, I was STILL running. My legs began to feel like lead. I asked a spectator where the finish was. They responded, "around the corner." Well, it was more like around a couple of corners. When I saw the finish, I willed my legs to keep going just a little while more. I met my goal with a finishing time of 3:22! Woot Woot! Afterward, I told Leslie that it was the longest 0.2 miles I ever sprinted. She said that the run was actually 6.78miles (it was supposed to be 6.2!)! No wonder I my legs felt like dead weight!

My friend Cat, and I stayed in Tunica after the race. We ate dinner at the casinos and gambled a little. Seriously, we only wasted about $10.00 on the slots. I hate losing money. Then we watched a cheesy band play covers for a bit.



Earlier this week, my friend at Keeping Up With the Jones' gave me the "head's up" about the Ornamental Metal Museum in Court Square. They were helping people make jewelry...FREE!



Turned out that they were making bottle cap jewelry/crafts. It was more for kids, but looked like fun, anyway. I love the Downtown Alive stuff!