Bride Tri Race Report

Seeing as all five of you were in attendance at my wedding (as were the other three people who told me they’d follow my blog after my last post!), it isn’t news to you that I got married this summer. I married my college sweetheart. He’s my best friend and treats me like I am the best thing that has ever happened to him, even though I usually don’t deserve it.

From my perspective, the wedding was about as flawless as humanly possible. I plan to write a blog post about the actual wedding, but seeing as I’m trying to incorporate some race reports into my blog, I’d like to start with a race report from quite possibly best triathlon I’ve ever done: The Bride Tri.

I don’t know what most brides do on the mornings of their weddings, but, as I said in my prerace briefing, if the day was going to be the best day of my life, it needed some triathlon involvement. My maid of honor/sister hopped right on this request and, together with my dad and a really nice person at Worthington Pools who let us into the pool before opening, organized a mini triathlon for my friends and family. We had about 15 people participate and nearly as many serve as cheerleaders and course marshals.  

The ~300m swim took place in an ~40m pool with no lane lines, so it had a bit of an open water feel. We decided against a warm-up session, so after my dad yelled, “I Do!”, we were off. Margaret took an early lead, along with Amelia and Nicol, who are both talented but out-of-swimming-shape swimmers. I soon caught up to Amelia and Nicol and emerged out of the water in fourth after Margaret and my two cousins Ainsley and Hillary who may have cut the swim a little (ok, a lot) short.

I then hopped onto my old Specialized Allez to chase down Margaret. Nicol handed off to Beth Kelly, biking all star, who rocked a hybrid bike on the 7+ mile course like nobody’s business.  Team Noble was strong, though, and Amelia’s dad soon caught me on the bike. Having decided right then and there that the race was draft legal, we worked together and opened a sizable gap on Margaret, Beth, Ainsley, and Hillary. Unfortunately (as it was an out and back course), I never saw fellow Spider Dana or my cousin Betsy on the course. Alas, Dana, on a bike with a child seat, and Betsy had gotten lost and finally reemerged at T2 around the same time as Mr. Noble and me.

Team Noble got a jump-start out of T2, which was magnificed by my lack of Yankz and subsequently long transition time. I followed in pursuit of Amelia’s mom alongside Dana, who figured she might as well finish the run course. Nicol, dressed only her bathing suit, as well as Jenn and Erin, who were armed with pom-poms, cheered us on. Beth handed off control of Team XC to Amy, who crushed the 2-mile run in typical professional runner style. As I approached the finish line, some of the cheerleaders made an impromptu finishing tape out of towels, which I enthusiastically broke. Team Noble finished in 2^nd and Team XC in 3^rd. Margaret, Dana, Janice, Ainsley, and Hillary finished within minutes of each other.

For anyone who is reading this account and thinking that the race seems silly, don’t. It meant a lot to me that so many people came out to race, cheer, and be course marshals for an event centered around me and my love of triathlon. It started the day in a fun, stress-free way. Thank you very much to everyone reading this who participated in any capacity in the race.

Final note about the Bride Tri: after the race, the XC group and I did some commemorative push-ups in honor of our UR days. This is how we all learned that pushups become considerably harder if you haven’t done them in a while.

The End.