Team 10!

Friday, I took part in a triathlon that featured competitors from four of the local universities. Some of you may remember my pretty horrible triathlon bike crash experience from over a year ago (which left me unconscious and with 3 fractures in my cheek bones and one in my left wrist) and question my desire to participate... But the beautiful thing about this one was that it was in teams! I simply had to do one leg of the race, which was not bad at all. Each team had to contain at least one woman, which made me popular (female athletes are rarer in these parts).

I was on a team with two guys from the swimming group that I’m in: Ricardo (age 41, although I had thought he was much younger) and Jairo (age 17, although I had thought he was much older). I chose to do the running part, although I regretted it later when I saw my fellow runners (all men, except for one other woman, because all of the women chose to swim) in their competitive track uniforms and warming up faster than I usually run at a “fast” pace... Yikes!

We ended up finishing fourth in our category (which were formed by the sum of the ages of the team members), and I was very pleased with this placement. I was hoping for third (just so we could get a medal) but fourth was okay, too. Here is a re-cap of the event:

First, we got ready for our race to begin. We were labeled by our team number (with permanent marker that didn’t fully come off for another two days, might I add!), and here we are proudly displaying our number 10’s. Go team 10!!

Ricardo began with the swimming. He started out way too fast and burnt himself out (even having to stop briefly at one point), but he did a great job and finished his part of the race nonetheless.

Next, Jairo was full speed into the bike course. It was really hard (and included lots of hills), but he did really well and made up for some of the time Ricardo had lost us. Cycling is the national sport of Colombia, and there are many amazing cyclists in the country. However, I watched as even the best of them fell on the course... but they all got right back up and kept going along, like true champions.

Finally, it was my turn! It was pretty unpleasant in the true heat of the day (at 1:00pm, yikes!) and with the many mosquitoes that bit me along the way (in spite of my fervent application of bug repellent), but I attempted to keep up a steady speed and not trip on the many tree roots throughout on the path. I would like you to know that no one was blinded by the glowing whiteness of my legs (hahaha!), and I finished strong (mainly because I kept thinking, “The faster I run, the sooner I can get in the shade!”).

Yay team!