I did it... despite the sock thief's best effort to thwart my finish!

Today was an amazing day!

I woke up to the sounds of thunder and the flash of lightening. Awesome.

By the time Jaclyn got to my place, it was still raining, but the light show had ended. We set out for the trek to Pinkey Rec. As we were on our journey, the skies seemed to get lighter and lighter. When we pulled into Half Moon Lake - no more rain would be seen!

We grabbed our stuff and made our way to transition. I set up my transition are and made double and triple sure that I had everything. Jaclyn and I made our way back down to the lake to get some warm up time in prior to the start.

It was actually warm enough to not wear a wetsuit, but every bit of buoyancy helps!

Before we knew it the first wave (of 5) went into the water. 7 minutes later, wave 2 went in. then 7 minutes later the third wave went in. Finally it was our turn.

Off goes the horn and we are swimming!

The sighting was spot on and I felt really calm out there. I was not racing this tri - I was finishing it.

25 minutes later (estimated) I was out of the water and heading up the hill to transition. My whole goal for this race was to finish with a smile. To finish strong. I took time goals out based on the difficulty of this particular tri - by far the most difficult one in Michigan aside from Steelhead - and the fact that it was my first.

In transition I put on my glasses and started to peel off my wetsuit. After it was off I attempted to put on my socks... but an odd thing was found. I only had one.

You see, I rolled up my socks so that only the toes were exposed so they would be easy to put on and then put them into my biking shoes. They were both in there when I left for the swim... yet somehow only one was there when I returned. Damn.

I can bike without socks no problems, it was knowing that I would have 5 miles ON TRAILS to run without socks that worried me. I shrugged it off, put on my helmet, and de-racked Sweet T.

I took off on the 14 miles of rolling hills. ROLLING. HILLS.

I have a feeling my average bike speed was like 11. I averaged 18.75 - 19mph on the flats, and 25-30 on the downhills, but the uphills were many and slow peddling. The cool thing is that I passed a lot of people on the bike and they never passed me!

After the hilly ride I get back to transition and faced the beast. I did one more quick search through my transition bag to make sure that the sock did not get moved. No such luck. It was gone.

I grabbed my spare stick of body glide and lubed up both of my feet. All except for a small portion of my arches. Which by they - was where I blistered!

So I took off. By this time it was in the 80s and terribly sunny. I had already propelled myself forward 14.5 miles - what was 5 more? Once I got to the trail it was almost a relief. Until mile 2 when I was seriously thinking about taking a leaf and putting in my shoe for friction relief.

The only thing that stopped me - poison ivy was the only leaf I found! The 5 mile trail run was ridiculously hard. My hip was still in pain from the accident Wednesday, so every right step was a jolt of pain. Add to that the growing blisters on my feet and I was starting to feel deflated and demotivated. All of the people I dropped on the bike eventually caught up to me and passed me.

Man why didn't I bring two pairs of socks? is all that kept ringing through my head. I sucked it up and kept on going.

Eventually I saw the road which leads back to the park, and then I made the final descent to the finish line and crossed it. I wasn't dead last, but I had struggled out there today. I have learned quite a few great things - bring two of everything just in case was by far the best of them!

I saw all of my tri friends from my tri club, BT.com, and a few random people who read my blog at the finish line... they were all shouting my name! I tore off my shoes to see the damage - blisters galore! I told everyone what happened, and I kid you not - I heard of 3-4 other people who had 1 sock missing!

So there is some random person out there with a bunch of single socks. If you see them, please take back my smartwool!

No matter how deflated I became during the 5 miles of trails... I finished strong. I finished with a smile.

I finished.

I am a triathlete!

*giggles*

Now I am going to figure out what to do about my sore sore feet! I have a busy week where I will be standing the whole time. Great. :)

Next up is Big Fish. It will be a piece of cake compared to today. I like cake.