Finally Ready!

Today the finally piece of my triathlon fell into place...

What I'm wearing :)

This has been in the top three or four of things I've been worried about.  Why you ask? (or maybe you don't)

Well I'm not what you might call your standard size triathlete.  Some races call me an 'Athena'  but to put it bluntly - I'm closer to two Athenas. (Men you can ignore this next bit).  There was also the question of how to contain 'the girls'.  Most standard suggestions (wear tri shorts and a swim top) just wouldn't cut it for me.  I cannot run without major support.  It's dangerous and painful.  But -it was near imposable to get a sports bra on while wet... not to mention that from what I've been told there is no covered transition areas at Lavama.

Then I found that while swimming in a standard suit - when I really got good rotation going - certain parts couldn't keep up and were trying to escape from the sides.  So, my first 'modification' to standard tri gear was to start wearing a sports bra under my suit.  I've been doing that for a while now and I couldn't imagine trying to swim with any kind of speed without it now.

So my thought was, swim in a standard suit, with a sports bra and then throw on bike shorts and a top for the bike/run.  Yeah that thought lasted 1/2 a second.  There's no way I could sit a bike saddle with a standard suit on.  I had enough trouble with  bike shorts!  Ok then - bike shorts under the suit, suit comes off and a top over the bra...  eh yeah.  Probably would work except there's no way I'm going to run around in HI in just bike shorts.  I'm sorry, I just can't subject the world to that.  So, what to do?  And then there was the issue I found during our sprint tri,  when the bike shorts were wet and then I biked/ran in them - the chafed along the seams of the padding - so I had started to wear another layer under them.

The straw that finally broke the camels back (or broke open the camel's wallet) was when I went to swim last week and discovered that my suit has gone a little... limp.  eh almost no elasticity left!  It was going to have to be replaced before the race... what to do?  what to do?

Well I broke down and got a once piece tri suit!  It arrived today and I LOVE IT!!

The plan is this - tri suit and sports bra for the swim.  (and swim cap a goggles -duh)

T1 = an athletic skort over the tri suit ( to preserve my modesty) and my TNT tri top.  Socks and bike shoes, helmet, gloves, and my watter bladder.

T2 = a quick change to running shoes

And that's all

With my trisuit I also picked up a race belt and timing chip band - I'm so ready!!

Thank you Team Estrogen for getting me my stuff so quickly and for having such a great size selection!

By the way - check back here in six months or so - I plan on needing a much smaller tri suit :P