There is Hope for this World

That is what I thought as I was running the last kilometre of my first Olympic triathlon: there is hope. You see I was running low on fuel and the finish line seemed sooooo very far away. I could see it. I knew where it was, 1 kilometer away but after 3h40 minutes of racing my spirit needed a little boost so I asked for help (I'm never above that). It came in a big way. I inched closer to the supporters by the sidelines and asked for a high five. The first woman I asked for one thought I was insane or maybe I wanted to hit her or something dreadful of that order. Her neighbor however immediatly got what I was asking for. Thank God because I didn't have enough breath left in me to feel mortified. He took one look at me and told me: 'I'll take you to the finish line'. He litterally ran the last k with me. I could have wept but by that time I was too dehydrated to cry. He kept talking to me, telling me how great we triathletes were and how he admired us and on and on he went, keeping me distracted and running. At the last 50 meters, he told me I would be all right and left me to finish on my own. All I could whisper was a soft 'thank you'. I arrived at the finish line with a burst of laughter full of surprise. I had actually made it. I had actually finished my first Olympic triathlon. I had survived the brutal 1.5 km swim where I got kicked in the teeth, elbowed on the side of the head, my goggles were ripped off at one point and yet I had managed to stay focused. Managed to swim relatively straight and managed to finish in 34 minutes. The bike always terrifies me. There were two crashes that day but I actually biked faster that I had ever biked before. The run was tediously slow but I made it. I actually made it.

The one lesson learned form this event, EAT MORE GEL!!! Gels are little packets of the worse chemical sugar you can think of. I have started consumming these things during the Ottawa half-marathon following the advice of my training partner and she was right. These horrible little gels are really helpful and next time I will have three instead of the two I had. They really make a big difference in performance.