Tri to End Homelessness: White Lake Sprint: Race Report

THE DAY BEFORE
If you've never been a spectator at a half-Ironman triathlon, we highly recommend it! The day before our race, we watched our coach take on 70.3 miles with grace, style, and determination. Watching fellow athletes push themselves to new limits was incredibly inspiring.

Throughout the day, we had several opportunities to talk about our Tri to End Homelessness campaign. We wore our "Ask me about Genesis Home" buttons and spectators were eager to hear more.

THE SWIM
The water was choppy, the air was chilly, and the wetsuits were tight! For the first time, we started a race together - although super swimmer Ray moved to the front of our wave, while newbie swimmer Rob staked out her spot in the calmer back of the pack. The start horn went off and we fought the chop to the first buoy. Ray powered through the swim like a champ. However, because the water was rougher than she had promised Robyn it would be, she consciously worried about her sis. Thankfully, the worry was not needed. As Robyn slowly rounded the initial marker, she let out an audible "All right!" and had the distinct thought of "O.k. , I can actually do this." We pulled ourselves out of the water and ran through a long transition to hop on our bikes.

750 yards

Ray - 15:30
Rob - 19:38

THE BIKE
Two super flat 7 mile loops in the wind. Our plan was to push the bike and try to average as close to 20 mph as we possibly could. We stayed in our aerobars and focused throughout the ride. Robyn could see Ray up ahead and thought she just might be able to catch her on the run....and then transition happened.

The bike to run transition was Ray's biking moment of glory. She successfully took her feet out of her shoes while riding in and gracefully dismounted into a quick run. Robyn also had this plan, but grace was apparently not on her side. Instead, her bike to run transition went more like this:

Right foot out, shoo! Good...one more to go....left foot out.....why is my bike stopping??....whoa....WHOA!!!...my shoe is caught, my shoe is caught.....o.k., I'm off my bike, super....guess I'm running this sucker in....only 100 yards or so..yikes, my legs hurt...and this asphalt doesn't feel so good...smile for the camera!

14 miles
Ray - 44:27
Rob - 46:08

*Note: Somewhere on the bike, Rob was hit with a 2:00 penalty that was added to her overall race time. She was consciously riding to the left so as not to draft off of the riders she was passing, but apparently, she slipped up somewhere along the bike route. Ugh....Hard to leave 2 whole minutes in the penalty box.

THE RUN
We've both been trying to lower our 5K times and the work is paying off. Ray PRed her run at 26:08 and Rob came close at 27:32. As usual, getting to the turnaround felt like it took forever, but also as usual, the elation when crossing the finish line never gets old.

TOTAL TIMES
Ray - 1:29:17
Rob - 1:38:30