Tri Latta 2012 – One2Tri
Guarding One2Tri
The morning started out
very beautiful. It was perfect weather
for race day. The hike to the lake from
parking was about a quarter mile. I
walked through the race entry areas, past the finish line and transition area
and headed down to the lake to meet my team. I work at the Mecklenburg County
Aquatic Center
We always have to set up
the sighting buoys as markers so the athletes know where they are in the water
and where to turn around to head back to shore. My friend and co-worker TJ was taking off in
the 3rd wave and he asked me to hold some of his stuff while he was
racing.
The first wave went off
at 6:30am. I saw a couple One2Tri
athletes in the water and cheered them on as I saw them pass me by. I also cheered for my friend Jonathan who was
in the 2nd wave. He was breast
stroking when I saw him which was unusual for him. I yelled for him and said, “Let’s go Jonathan!”
and he started swimming again. Then TJ
took off in the next wave and I looked for him out front. I think I saw him so I yelled, “Go TJ!!!”
hoping that it was him. I also saw Susan
and Rose swimming in there heat and yelled for them too. I want to say there were about 10 waves that
went off this morning, so the water portion took just about over a full hour to
complete so I didn’t get to see some of the One2Tri team finish.
After the last person had
rounded the turn buoys I went and hooked them to my kayak and started to pull
them back into shore. I followed the
last person in just to make sure to keep the turn buoys behind him. After the last person got out of the water I
pulled in the two turn buoys and changed my shirt so that I represented One2Tri
and headed up to watch the team.
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| Team One2Tri on their cool-down run |
Cheering on the Team
My first stop when making
it to the top of the hill was to stop by the Great Harvest Bread Co. booth and
the fruit booth to get my mid-morning snack. Great Harvest is a guarantee when going some
of these triathlons and has been at Latta the past 3 to 4 years I’ve been
there. I started to get hungry before
the swim portion of the triathlon even got started. I grabbed some Cinnamon Chip and Dakota bread
from Great Harvest, a banana from the fruit booth and headed over to the finish
to see if I could find any of my One2Tri team.
The first person I
spotted was Nicole, who was relaying the triathlon with a para-athlete on her
team. Her para-athlete swam and was out
on the bike when I found her and she was doing the run portion of the race. Besides Nicole being the first person I
spotted I saw that this year Set-up Events had a TV monitor up showing the
results live and places within age groups right after the athletes had crossed
the finish line. I saw Jason too; he
swims with the One2Tri group on Tuesday mornings. I saw David Gary, a co-worker from the Aquatic Center
David was worried about
his swim since he wasn’t happy with it when he raced Jetton Tri a couple weeks
back. Jonathan had told me previously
that he just hasn’t been that into it and had been slacking in his training or
at least it hasn’t been going that well. He wasn’t very happy about his swim, said he couldn’t
catch his breath and that the water was really cold.
After talking to them for
a little bit I went and found Nicole and along with her I found Anna and Sarah,
along with my surprise Tom! I knew Anna
and Sarah were going to be there and I was excited because they both plan on
doing a triathlon in October. We hung
out right before the run finish to cheer on all our One2Tri people as we saw
them coming around the corner. We were
taking pictures while cheering on the athletes we saw and knew.
On the way back to the
car we saw Nicole’s bike leg coming in. He is truly amazing to watch since he has to
use one of the arm bikes. If he can do
that all without his legs, an injury for me should be no issue. I have no reason to complain because he is
conquering something harder than I will ever conquer!
The Itch
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| 2nd place AG finish at East Coast VolksWagon Triathlon (September 11, 2011) |
Watching all my fellow
teammates out there today made me realize how bad I want to be out there with
them and having the team and my friends cheering me on. I wanted to be out there in the water with
them while they were charging through the water and coming out on top. I want to push myself as hard as I can on my
bike ride so I can be prouder of myself than I think I normally would since the
bike leg isn’t my strongest area. And I
want to push myself to the limit on my run, beating my PR. I want to push myself so that I finish under
1:30:00! I want this year to be my
season and be able to say that I am apart of the One2Tri Racing team(black,
white and red).
I wanted this year to be
my year of amazing improvements and accomplishments. Challenging myself and doing things I never
thought I would do like my half-marathon. This injury has really made me realize how
much I love the sports that I do and how much they are apart of me more than I
know. I want to come back from this
injury stronger than I was before and keep my head up, push through the ups and
downs of my training and push myself further on my training so I can be better
than I was before.
How I wish I was out
there with them today racing! I would
have giving just about anything.
Shhhhh…I want to be on
the One2Tri racing team!
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| TJ, Jonathan Story, Danielle Crockford, and Carolyn Maye of Team One2Tri Racing |
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