June 5, 2005 - The Danskin Triathlon

Although I was now a triathlete, I was becoming a more humble triathlete with each race. I no longer had any excuses. I had the fastest wet suit and Tri-bike that money could buy. If I was slow, it was all me and not my equipment. The morning of the race, I said a prayer and asked God to teach me whatever it was that I needed to hear. Shortly after my prayer, I looked at my stopwatch and it was blank. The battery was dead. How could I compete without my stopwatch? I decided that maybe this was the lesson that God wanted me to learn. (If you haven't noticed already I have a tendency towards obsessing about times, rankings, and statistics. They seem to comfort as well as torment me.) So I went to the starting line without my stop watch.

The Swim
At the start, I looked out at the buoys in the lake. This was a 1/2 mile swim. My heart started to pound hard in my chest. The course looked SO far. I was scared. Could I really swim that far out there? The gun went off, I started to swim. Many times I stopped to rest. Lots of women passed me. The swim seemed to last forever. Finally, I finished. I was just happy to have not drown.

The Bike
There were two laps with some steep hills. The course was 13 miles. On my second lap, my chain came off and I had to stop and put it back on at the bottom of a hill. More women passed me.

The Run
Again this went pretty well I passed quite a few women while running the 5K course.

The Results
This time, I really didn't want to see the results. I knew that I had not raced well. The swim had been slow and my chain had come off on the bike. I was just enjoying having finished, and being at my first all women's' event. It was a very different atmosphere than my other races. I was sitting on the grass at the finish line. It was really inspiring just watching these women get so excited about crossing the finishing line. They didn't seem to care how fast they were. They just seemed to enjoy knowing that they had finished. I was trying to be just like them and just enjoy the race. I felt that God had told me to stop worrying about placing and times, but to just be in the moment. Then they started calling out the top finishers in each age group. While they were doing this I stretched on the grass and continued to watch women being greeted at the finish with finishers medals. What a wonderful event this was! Then I heard my name called, "and in 2nd place Victoria Jones". What? That can't be? It must be another age group, that's a common name. Then they called the first place woman in the 45-49 age group! It WAS me. That was my age group they were announcing. Tears came to my eyes. I finished in second place in my age group. I felt on top of the world. Here are my final results:

• Swim 10th out of 29 ( Time 17:28)
• Bike 2nd out of 29 (Time 48:11)
• Run 3rd out of 29 (Time 24:48)
• Overall 2nd out of 29 (Time 1:34:41)