A long time coming...

It's been a very long time since we have blogged - forgive us, you brave souls who may still read this - but it's not this posting that's been A Long Time Coming.

Last week, I (Gnome) set a new 5k pb - something I've been trying to do for 18 months and my first time ever below 20 minutes - but it's not that pb that been A Long Time Coming.

In November 2002, after a year of preparation, tiger angel competed in her first triathlon. For someone of her athletic (lack of) history, this was a really major event. A photo from that race still has pride of place on my desk at work. For the next few years, TA kept doing enticer-length tri's. Lots of them (there seemed to be about one a month back then). Somehow, the step up to longer events just didn't seem to be necessary nor interesting. Then, just as they started to appear on the horizon of her imagination, so did the various illnesses that have plagued her body over these last couple of years.

Today, over six years after she first contemplated triathlon, tiger angel competed in her first sprint-length tri (500m/20k/5k). That's what has been a long time coming! :-)

The major fear of the week was not "is it too much for me?", "is it too long?" or "will I fail miserably?", but "will it be too hot?". Today, in the company of CR buddies Jen_Runs, Wildthing & Mouse, she proved the resounding answer to those questions to be NO! NO! NO! and "well, yes, pretty much!" :-) Despite the heat, each leg was better than expected with her best ever swim time, backed up by really pleasing bike and run legs.

There's a bunch of photos here, but these ones are my favourites...

Nervous? Nah, not us

Attacking a hill

Whipping past another pesky upstart right on the line

...and to the victors go the spoils... rest for the weary :-)

Even hopeless TriNSW losing her times for the first two legs isn't enough to spoil what's been a Pretty Good Day.

Gnome