Triathlon

Somehow I found myself doing a triathlon yesterday. I hadn't been on my bike in one year and had only swam a handful of times since January. Margot was doing it and talked me into with the reasoning, "Why not?". I kept trying to talk myself out of it, but didn't really have any good reasons not to do it - except for my nerves. Luckily, it's so laid back and small here so the nerves weren't too bad either. Anyway, it was awesome and I am glad I did it. I am now a SILVER medalist in the Fiji Nationals Triathlon Championship. And, well, I was also last, but that's just semantics right? I mean, I was dead last. They were picking up the cones after me...just waiting for me to get pass the cone and then immediately picking them up when I passed. It's only a little humiliating - but not so much so that I wouldn't do it again. We swam 750 km in the ocean (although I think I swam more as they had to whistle at me for going WAY off track), biked 20 km (I did it on a SLOW beach cruiser/hybrid bike while almost everyone else was on a sleek road bike) and a 5k run.

The morning started out beautifully! Amazing sunrise and rainbows galore. What a land of contrasts it is here in Suva. On one side was the gorgeous rainbow and in the water.... Ugh. I could still gag thinking about it. Margot and I were going to do a little warm up swim and just as we were about to slide our way in down the mossy ramp to swim, Margot spotted a diaper floating right in our path. She grabbed an empty icecream container from the other rubbish floating close by and removed the diaper from everyone's swim path. After that, I just couldn't do the warm up. I could only swim when everyone else did and tried very hard not to let any water get in my mouth. Ugh. So gross. After the triathlon, I heard the water in Suva harbour is crazy shark infested - hammer heads and bull sharks. I don't know if that's true but I'm so glad I didn't hear that before the swim! Anyway, SO glad I did the race. It was a HUGE workout for me and SUPER fun! I want to do another one!