Monday, September 10, 2012

Brush Your Shoulders Off...YOU DID IT!

Welp, that's a wrap, folks. You did it! Congratulations! If this was your first triathlon, you have my permission to walk tall for the rest of the week. If this was just another flash in the pan during your season of races, a round of applause equally. That was a tough course! Weird how a place so beautiful can be so unforgiving...

Mike Wollinger and Noelle McKay,
after finishing the afternoon race, in quite the daze.
We had a gorgeous morning for the first race, and come second race the clouds were compassionate by blocking out the worst of the sun's rays.  Overall a total of 89 triathletes registered, making the event a success for Mainstay and Housing Assistance. In first place for the Advanced Triathlon overall was John Henis with a time of 1:45:08. Second place was Karen Masson close behind at 1:49:07, and third place was first-time triathlete, Clayton Sanders, with a time of 1:55:36.  For the Novice Triathlon, the top three were Scott Laffin came in first with a time of 58:23, Ed Lilly came in second at 1:02:41, and Brian Augustine was a cool 5 minutes behind him at 1:07:20. 

Me crossing the finish line!
My experience was strenuous but ultimately so rewarding. 100 meters into the swim I was ready to give up. Everyone was splashing around me, people zipping past me like they were shooting for gold, no shores to be seen, and the vast, open sky above me made me feel exceptionally abandoned. But after flopping around for 50 strokes or so, I made it to the bridge and then it was gravy.  Enclosed in the channel, it became much easier for me to forge ahead to the next buoy, and then the next, and then the next, until I had passed two swimmers from the first wave and left two swimmers from my own wave in my wake. That ego boost was equivalent to a whole box of energy gels. I finished the race in 2:40, winning in the Athena category for the Advanced race. (Athena = women >150lbs. I may have been one of two who had the guts to put their actual weight down on registration. Eh, I'll take it.) 

Volunteers and participants enjoy Terry Foxworth's delicious
bar-b-q and Sierra Nevada's generous donation of beer.

Bikers coming out of the 10K bike course
Rodney Robinson was the (evil?) mastermind behind the bike course. For those of who you were more technical mountain bikers, I heard it was a terrific ride, with all the narrow turns and bits of tree trunk to navigate around. Funny, that wasn't what it felt like from a novice perspective.. Still, many thanks to him for marking the trails and working with the organizations to come up with the best routes.  And to the volunteer lifeguard and kayakers out there on the water with us, your presence was most definitely a beacon of refuge for many panicked swimmers at one point or another - or maybe I'm just speaking for myself. Thank you to all the volunteers who helped set up the day before and who stayed after both races were over to clean up. You were ultimately responsible for alleviating worries of all parties involved, participants, organizers, and spectators alike. We can't thank you enough. 

To everyone who kept up with my blog during these last 7 weeks, I hope there was at least one nugget of advice from here that you took with you to Lake Summit.  It was great getting a chance to meet a few of you out there who were in the same boat as I, being totally new to this experience. I had the fortunate opportunity to be interviewed by someone from the Hendersonville Times who also kept up with my blog. Gotta say, that was icing on the cake. :-) Unfortunately/fortunately Housing Assistance nor Mainstay are organizations who put on triathlons on the regular, so this is it for for that subject. However, we hope you will continue following Housing Assistance's blog that will keep you up to date on all the happenings of our sweet organization. We'll be adding volunteer opportunities, DIY tips on basic home maintenance, and other pertinent information related to housing in Henderson County. Definitely check back every now and then, as we thrive on your attention (seriously, I've been refreshing the stats page of Google Analytics since the moment I started this blog. I crave your attention, people.)

Stefanie Kompathoum of HAC and Mainstay Executive Director,
Tanya Blackford, are soooo happy the race is finally over.

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