Chloe! You are NOT an Irongirl!!

WHERE TO BEGIN!?!? Lot's of randomness in this post - just to warn you!

Friday after work we all headed over to Helen's house to pile into the Honda and head to Atlanta. And yes - we did fit 4 girls, 4 bikes, and lots of stuff into one car! Kind of. Here is the view I had of Helen:

And we kept on hitting our heads on the bike - we acutally had the thought of wearing our helmets...


Anyway - we get to Atlanta at about 1:30AM! Way past everyone's bed time....but the house we where staying at was awesome and our hosts where VERY gracious to let us four pretty much take over the house!! AND the house was only about a 10 min drive from the race site! whoohoo!!

Saturday we got up and made it in time for Helen to go to her pro meet and greet. HOLY PRO'S !! :)


And Lisa somehow got Helen to sign her bib! :)


After that we ended up just wondering around the expo and grabbing the freebies! Not to mention sporting our SWEET shirts:



The next morning we got up and made it to transition in PLENTY of time to get everything set up in transition - and who did I run into in the back row party!?! MISSY!! Whoohoo!! I hooked her up with a sweet shirt - and she suprised me with a bottle of nothing other then Tennesses finest...Jack Daniels! Which I totally should have taken with me on the bike. Anyway - it was GREAT running into her and I can't wait to hopefully see her at another one!



Let me tell you real fast about transition - it was full of the most random bikes I have ever seen. Tri bikes, road bikes, mtn bikes, beach cruisers...congrats to those ladies who rocked out the 18 miles on those bad boys!! Anyway - the day before at bike check in - the lady running the check in said that there where about 300 people who knew what they where doing ant about 900 who didn't. But it was really awesome to see SO many ladies rocking out the sport!

Fastest race report ever - swim was great. The lake was beauitful - the water was a bit warm, but at least there where no waves forcing salt water down my throat. I was in the last wave which is always kind of a challenge when you run into the waves infront of you. Anyway had a great swim - hopped out of the water and ran up the 1/4 mile mountian (seriously - it was that steep) to transition. Jumped onto my bike and took off. What an amazing ride. Tons of rolling hills - loved it. I felt so strong and knew I was going to totally rock out this race. Until around mile 14. POP. Ugh. Flat. NOOO!!!

Out of no where the nicest lady ever (I LOVE TRIATHLETES) - offered to help me change my tire out...which I was MORE then thankful for!! She was so awesome - she was just getting back into the sport after having a baby and was using this as a training day for a 70.3 she had coming up. I could not have had a flat around a nicer person. Anyway - we both got back on our bikes. At that time I was just all about finishing the race. So we cruised and just chatted away. And then about a mile leter. POP. WTF!?! No more tubes - so I was just all about walking it in and then doing the run.

You know - you can't get pissed when things like that happen. It's kind of like when your luggage gets lost at the airport. Sure you can get mad - but why? There is not a darn thing you could do about it - except just accept it and keep on moving :) And that is what I did. I just walked along and cheered everyone on - not realizing that I had...oh...about 2.5 mile walk ahead of me (didn't have my computer on my bike). A volunteer drove up and offered me a ride in (telling me how far of a walk I had) so I accepted. And as he was driving in - we where chatting and he was in my hood not to long ago and even did a weekend ride with us! Small world!

As I was talking my bike up to transition - I ran into Marni and her friend!! They had rocked out 1st and 2nd place in our age group!! They where both super nice and I hope that I will run into the two of them again!!

All in all it was a great race - and even better to pull more women into the sport. I can't wait until next year to redeem myself and to hopefully bring more wonderful ladies up there for a good girls weekend! Here are a few more random weekend pictures:





I ended up riding back home with Lisa - she was driving back to the beach from an outdoor adventure camp in West Virginia. And I really don't think we could have fit anything else in her car...



And we where welcomed back to the sunshine state by these wonderful guys:


How do you like my steathly photo skills?

If you are interested in the cool tri shirts - shoot me an e-mail and I'll pass on the info :)

Hope everyone had a great weekend!!