So I Married a Triathlete

This past weekend Candis and 6 friends all completed the Tri Babes Sprint Triathlon. A feat that required them to swim 750 meters, bike 12 miles and then run a 5K. I completed the much more impressive feat of toting two kids around a triathlon course, taking pictures of their mother and cheering loudly. Why is my feat more impressive? Well... it’s not, but I did mine without a lick of training and set a new Personal Record for the number of times I lost track of where my children were. Ta da! Unfortunately they always found their way back to me thanks to the friends and relatives who were in attendance cheering for Candis and the other ladies.

Enough about me. Candis. Rocked! The night before the tri Candis indicated that a good time to shoot for would be 25 minutes on the swim, 45 minutes on the bike and 35 minutes for the run for a total time somewhere around the 1 hour 45 minute mark. I countered with 20 - 45 - 30 because Candis always underestimates her abilities when creating race goals, and a 35 minute 5K for Candis would be downright shameful. I’m not sure what we decided on but here’s the way it worked out!

Swim (750m): 15:39 (A full 4 minutes faster than her best training times!)
T1: 1:52
Bike (12 mi): 46:36
T2: 1:06
Run (5K): 32:11
Total Time: 1:37:22

Most impressive was clearly the swim and T1 time. I was so excited for Candis when she came up out of the water in 15 minutes and headed into T1, she was doing great! T2 was an entirely different story, and not because it was slow. Candis came in on the bike, hung it on the rack and headed out as quickly as she could. She’d been gone a few minutes when I saw her bib still lying in her transition area. (For the sensible readers among you who don’t do triathlons; you have to put the bib on for the run.)

In an ironic twist of fate you’ll notice that in Candis’ last post before the tri, the only item in her Race Plan that suffered from excessive exclamation points was “BIB ON !!!” Perhaps it needed more exclamation points or a larger font. Springing into action, I illegally leapt into the transition zone and snatched up the bib. I could either head to the finish and try to hand her the bib a couple tenths of a mile prior to the finish line or I could try to chase her down. I knew that she would be upset about leaving the bib if she realized what she’d done and I was worried she’d come back to get it, so dressed in jeans and a cotton t-shirt I took off for a little 5K jaunt. Not long into my impromptu run I rounded a corner and saw Candis running back towards me, tears welling up in her eyes. I handed her the bib and she turned around and headed back in the right direction. I paced with her for another quarter mile until she was able to settle down and get into her groove, at which point I went back to the finish area and thanked Candis’ aunt and uncle for watching the kids.

Hey look, no bib!
The run course as measured by a friend’s Garmin actually turned out to be 2.7 miles (a 4.4K instead of a 5K), but by coming back to get her bib Candis managed to run an extra half mile, making her run a fraction longer than a 5K. I suppose you could say that Candis was the only one to finish the course because everyone else stopped shy of running a 5K, in fact if I was her I’d be telling everyone that I was the only one who was able to run a 5K after the grueling swim and bike. That’s the way I roll, dishonest and boastful are two of my more attractive qualities. Sorry ladies, I’m taken.

I can’t even tell you how proud I am of Candis so please try to suppress your praise and adulation of me and tell Candis in the comments that she did great, just for today. Tomorrow you can go back to telling me how awesome I am because let’s not forget that I’m the one who’s running a marathon.


Don’t let her catch you!
Candis takes my 3 year old’s advice and shows her Battle Face!
Also of note I ran into Ross Hadley from agegroupers.com and he took a whole bunch of pictures of the event, you can see them here. All of the girls from our group are wearing the same pink hibiscus shirt that Candis is and there’s even a group shot of the husbands and kids that were there supporting Team Hibiscus. Many thanks for the pictures Ross.

Congrats on a great time C. “It’s a shame I’m going to have to destroy you.”