Memphis in May Triathlon

This weekend Justin, Chris, Claire and I went to Tunica for the Memphis in May Olympic Distance Triathlon. It was a lot of fun and I was proud of how we did. I beat my previous Olympic Distance times by about 4 minutes, so that was good. Claire did awesome, finishing around 2:49 and placing 6th in our age group. Chris got off to a great start until his pedal fell off and he had to call it a day. And Justin was an amazing spectator and photographer, as always.

Although my time was what I was hoping for I was a little disappointed in myself and am fired up to do another race and push a little harder and dig a little deeper. I was battling a cold and it was pouring down rain for much of the race, and I used both of those as excuses to back off. So now I have my sights set on the Nashvegas 1/2 Iron distance in September in Ashland City, TN and I hope to train properly and try my very best to leave it all on the course!

Here are some pictures from the race!

This is me about to go into the water. It was a time trial start, with someone starting every 3 seconds. After waiting about 20 minutes the start somehow sneaked up on me. As soon as I hit the water I felt like I forgot everything I ever knew about swimming, but eventually I found a little bit of a groove. I'm a much better swimmer than I acted like today, though!

Here's an example of why I'm not thrilled with my performance. This is me hanging out in transition, talking to Justin. I really wasn't there that long, but seriously.... it's a race. I'm supposed to be in a hurry.

It was a good day and I'm proud of myself for finishing. I've never been so close to quitting a race as I was during the first 5-10 miles of the bike today. Thunder and lightning, pelting rain and strong headwinds will get anyone down, but the 12 mph I kept reading on my bike computer really got to me. I decided that what I really wanted was a shower and dry clothes before check-out time, and knew that quitting would ensure that I got those things. I'm so glad I stuck it out and finished! And so glad we got to spend a couple days with great friends!

My first salad!

What makes this salad photo-worthy, aside from the great mango salsa and fish tacos sharing the plate? This is the first lettuce harvested from our garden! We hardly have any green space in the back yard, but took the little space that we have and planted lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers and tomatoes. We planted the lettuce early, since it likes cool weather, and I'm not expecting it to last long once it gets hot. In fact, this may be our only salad, but I hope not! Here is what the lettuce looks like now.


It's looking rough, but not as bad as the broccoli that already started flowering even though it is only May and still reasonably cool outside.


It looks pretty, I guess!

Hopefully we'll get at least some edible broccoli from one of the plants, but when I read about how to keep the soil cool so it won't flower it seemed much easier to just make a trip to Kroger!