Courtenay Brown

Congratulations, Champ!

Yesterday I raced the Danskin Women’s Triathlon here in Seattle. It’s a sprint distance race consisting of a .5 mile swim, a 12 mile bike, and a 3.1 mile run. The race is in its 20th year and is actually the largest all-women’s triathlon in the country! There were over 5,000 racers yesterday, it was amazing. And, my race went pretty well. I won! (click link for official media recap, read on for my own personal and awesome recap).

I went into the race with several distinct advantages. I had a hefty cheering squad, in the form of Ben, Rory and Mojdeh, Trish, and Matt, and they were well-armed with cowbells, heckles, bikes for transportation around the giant transition area, and the ever-formidable, ever-motivating Digital Camera. Also, I had a few weeks of short hard bike intervals under my belt. Three weeks of specific bike work brought back a lot of my lost confidence after time off earlier in the summer. And best of all, I had Number One. Yep, I was racer #1! Better prove I deserved it!

The race itself was short and very sweet. My swim wasn’t bad at all, in fact Ben says it was my best swim ever. My bike was not last on the rack when I came in from the swim, so I believe him! I came in 2.5 minutes after the leader, Karen, who I know from swimming at Green Lake and she is a really good swimmer. T1 was nice and fast (FINally!), then onto the bike. There were at least 3 but probably more girls from the second wave who passed me on the swim, but I beat them out of transition so that was cool. The course was nearly identical to the Seafair Triathlon bike course, just shifted a couple miles down the same roads, but I felt worlds better than I did a month ago. I rode my way into first place about a mile after the turnaround point, and from that point on I had a police escort! I have never had that before, and that’s including non-racing opportunities for police escorts! Another cool thing I’d never experienced before was all the exuberant support from other racers as I rode along the “back” portion of the out-and-back course. In all of my other races, all us racers have been so self-focused that the most we exchange is a “good [gasp gasp erk] job”, but the welcoming and very supportive atmosphere at Danskin made for a wonderfully vocal ride back. I did my best to return all the “good job!”s and waves! T2 felt good, I set the mood with my Brooks Run Happy hat, then I started running with a smile. And OMG I was rejoined by my police motorcycle escort?! Nice! The whole way he was rolling along in front of me, waving at spectators and pumping his fist for me. I had no idea if there were girls running me down, or superstar girls in subsequent waves, so I really tried to push it. The course was partially out and back, and when I was at mile 2 I saw second place hitting mile 1, so I knew at that point I was at least going to cross the finish line first and hopefully also win. I turned my focus to turning in a sub-19 minute effort. I did it! 18:47. Second place finished 6:28 behind me.

So that was it! I really enjoyed the whole experience, and I can’t wait for next year’s Danskin. I met a lot of great and enthusiastic women – I felt like it brought out the best in me and everyone else there as well.