๐Race Report!๐
Thank you Southland Triathlon and Multisport Club for the event (and the event photos!) I had an absolute blast!
I wanted to try this as soon as the event came up on the local club page: but I had all sorts of apprehensions about it. What if I canโt walk that far? How will I get through transition? What do I need the handler to do? What if my legs are toast after the bike ride and I canโt do the second run?
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I have a friend (thanks Mary!) who is heavily involved in the tri club and is also an ITU technical official. So I talked to her and asked was it ok if I walked instead of ran. Once I got the ok (and the offer from her to be my handler) I knew it would actually be possible after all.
๐ฏ The goal: to have my first chance at practicing a transition as a para-athlete with a handler and start learning how it works / best ways to do things.
โ๏ธWhat I did not care about; how long it would take, if I would be the only walker, if I would be the only para (because I had the feeling I would be!) I didnโt even care if I didnโt finish. Transitions were the focus.
๐โโ๏ธ#1 (1km) A friend walked the first 1km with me, my goal here was to walk as fast as I felt I could sustain. I wanted to push myself, but within my own boundaries. 12min/km was my pace for the first kilometre walk (5kmphโฆ we only JUST started adding intervals in at this pace two days ago in physio!)
๐ด๐ผโโ๏ธ (10km, 4 laps) Again my goal was sustainability. Being on a mountain bike instead of my race bike, I didnโt give a stuff what the speed was. I was trying to catch my friend (who got through transition way faster due to my leg situation ๐) I was actually catching her slowly but she had too much of a head start on me to catch her up before the end of the bike (but it did make her run all of the last section instead of walk!) I wasnโt actually last on the last quarter of the last lap, but clearly the 3 people behind me on bikes were NOT allowing a one legged cyclist to beat them (๐) and they all came motoring past puffing and panting before the lap was complete! All throughout the 10km bike ride I got tons and tons of cheers and hollers and gasps of amazement from the other cyclists / runners on the course. I had a feeling (later confirmed) that they had never had an amputee at this event before!
๐โโ๏ธ #2 (1km) My friend was still out running the last leg when I came through transition so her husband (thanks Ross) walked my last km with me. I was amazed how good my leg felt after all it had already been through – considering I had not demanded this of it before ๐ but I did start to feel it towards the last 200m or so, with ham string and glute fatigue on the left side. But.. I made it through – and boy am I proud!
๐๐ป Thank you to all the competitors who shouted encouragement to me, young and old, you were all amazingly supportive
๐๐ป Thank you Mary, for your support and for being my handler for the very first time!
๐๐ป Thank you Liz for coming along, bringing your cheering squad and walking the first section with me
๐๐ป Thank you Southland Triathlon and Multisport Club for an awesome (incredibly inclusive) event, it was fabulous to be back in a Multisport event for the first time in almost a decade.
โค๏ธ Baby steps lead to big goals, and this baby step was a very important milestone for me. โค๏ธ