Jersey Girls

Every summer, three of my best girlfriends from grade school and I spend a weekend at the beach. Last year we did our first triathlon in conjunction with that girls weekend.   We had so much fun that we decided to make the triathlon a part of our annual beach weekend tradition.  This year we chose the SheROX Sprint Triathlon at Asbury Park NJ, an all girls event, to celebrate our friendship and girl power. 

  
I have to attribute my great race in part to the altitude training I've been doing in Colorado Springs too.  I got my first taste of this when I went out Friday morning in PA for a short run and dropped some fast miles with only a fraction of the effort I'd expect that pace to require in CO.  I took off around the neighborhood feeling like I was running on clouds rather than the rolling hills surrounding my childhood home. Thank you to my new tri-ready Saucony Mirages with Yankz! I was pacing based on perceived effort rather than relying on my Garmin and when I finally did look down at my watch I was pleasantly surprised...whoo hoo sub 7 min pace for last mile :o)

When race day arrived we awoke well before sunrise to braid our hair, snag some fuel, and prep for the race.  It used to be that if we were up at 4am it was because we hadn't gone to bed yet and were just returning from a party or were deeply immersed in girl talk.  As we arrived at the shore with all of our gear, we were met with a change of plan.  The race was set to consisted of a .4K ocean swim, 16K bike ride, 5K run.  However, strong riptides and dangerously strong waves caused the race directors to cancel the swim on race day morning.  We had mixed emotions:  Michelle was ecstatic hopping up and down with joy that she wouldn't have to swim; Chelsea was frustrated to miss out on swimming since it is her stronger event and instead would be doing an extra run which is her least favored event.  Although swimming is certainly not my strongest event and I was nervous about how my sprained ankle would handle a shoreline beach run in place of the swim, I had put in time at the pool throughout the summer and traveled all the way from landlocked Colorado Springs to be denied swimming in the ocean!?  We rolled with it though and of course had a great time.

Although we're all at different fitness levels and are best at different events, we all had a blast participating in this event, pushing ourselves and most importantly each other. We all finished with both a personal sense of satisfaction and pride in each others' accomplishment.  Training and racing with each other empowers us as strong females in life and makes great memories.  Plus we all PR'ed :o)