In the off-chance you’ve yet to hear: word on the street is the wacky girl who on Saturday finished running every street in Marlborough the very next day went on to take first freaking place in her age group–and was the ninth woman overall across the finish line–at the 2011 Marlborough Triathlon.

In case there’s any question: that chick is none other than little ol’ me. Also in case there’s any question: I am most definitely not accustomed to such glory and am completely-totally-wholly basking in it. A massively huge Cheshire Cat grin has not left my face since sometime around 11 am on Sunday. I have been giddily finding new ways to review the race results (for instance, of the eight women who finished before me, four were in the F-PRO division. That means they are kinda-sorta good at this stuff.) I confess I experience a wee bit of separation anxiety when too far away from my first-place finisher’s medal with its nifty blue ribbon. I am personally attributing the win to the nifty new socket rockets I got this weekend. Or maybe it’s attributable to the sadistic workouts my coach made me do this winter. Or maybe to the insanely focused way I did those nutty workouts. Or maybe all three. Whatever the root, here’s the result:

isn't it gorgeous? 🙂 Big BIG smile

I certainly have a longer blog post about this in me but that will take hours to write that I just don’t have rightthisveryminute, so I’m going to employ the same blogging approach I did after the Boston Marathon: pictures first, words later.

Here’s the day revisited, thanks to my camera-wielding mother:

waiting at the swim start in my nifty new socket rockets--so long swim mask!

me and my wave

chest-high in the water wearing both my game face and my socket rockets

clearly my mother enjoyed taking pictures of me at the swim start 🙂 are you sick of seeing me in a swim cap yet?

What a swim start looks like (aka the mosh pit). This isn't my wave though (no orange caps)

running to your bike after the swim? Wicked hard.

Here's my destination: Mav awaits his rider at T1

heading out for loop two of the three-loop bike course

Running out "Run Out"...didn't head in the wrong direction this race 🙂

no jogging across the finish line for me: I gave #111 a run for his money

I reallyreallyREALLY want to "chick" this man

OK, no chicking today...he'll get to cross first...but the pursuit made me hit a 6:04 pace at 93 spm, which is kindaprettywicked cool

oh, *this* is going to be an interesting finish line photo--can't wait to see the professional photographer's view of this CJ-in-Misery moment!

I have dry heaves, my mother considers it a Kodak moment!

My mother found out I won before I did. While she looked at the race results, I was back at the finish line, cheering on the athletes.

a giddy trio–first second and third (second and third are training buddies. Note to self: get one of those)

I could get used to this 🙂

 

Oh, this one's better--you can see the numbers (as well as race director Bill Burnett)

That’s all for now…you go have yourself a nifty-blue-ribbon day!

🙂 BIG SMILES

– Christine