3rd Pro Female Philly Tri...what the???!?!?!

So Sunday was my first real deal pro race and I got 3rd...craziness!!! I cant believe it, that was way outside my expectations considering the field was seriously stacked (Wassner twins, jenna shoemake, pip taylor, mary beth ellis... these crazy crazy famous people!) totally insanity...

What really helped me of course was that they turned the race into a duathlon because of a horrible tradegy the day earlier when a young triathlete with two young kids passed away in the river- please pray for healing in that family and that they will find support from every direction where they have even the smallest need...

The first 5k went great, I ran on jenna shoemaker's heals the whole way and just zoned out and let her carry me. I ran very within myself at about 85% and we rolled into T1 right behind the wassner twins in 18:26. After T1 I could see the wassner twins up the road and I decided just to follow them and hang behind them on the bike becuase I was a little shocked at that point that I was in 4th....pip taylor (who I met after the race and has a super sweet demeanor- I can totally see why she has such a great reputation!!)caught us around the second loop and I just continued to hang behind and follow their leads...meanwhile jenna shoemaker and samuels from New zealand up the road were putting massive massive time on us on the bike!! Coming into T2 my legs felt recovered and I felt like I went a bit conservative on the bike but I knew the next 10k was going to be hell! It was incredibly hot and humid by that point (did I forget to mention I dropped my full waterbottle on the first lap of the bike!- so no water for quite a while!- rookie mistake!) I passed pip and rebecca wassner soon after T1 and felt fine until about mile 3...miles 3-6 were unbelievably hard- I was running alone, it was sooo hot and miserable..It took everything I had not to stop- I definatley could not have run any harder even though the time was not very good (39:59)....After the race I was in shock- my goal going into it was not to get last...never thought I could win money and podium! Thanks to Barb lindquist for encouraging me to race in the pro field...I almost raced as an amateur this race..haha!!

Next time my swim will be tested and that will be a whole new ballgame...stay tuned...=)