First, a brief bit of history.  10 year ago, after a bit of verbal sparring with my brother-in-law Kevin as to who was in better shape, I did my first triathlon – a sprint distance tri in Kirkland.  It was brutal.  I crawl-stroked, back-stroked, breast-stroked, and dog-paddled through the ½ mile swim.  When I finally got out of the water and tried to climb aboard my bike coming out of T1, my legs cramped up and I had to stop and stretch.  Halfway through the 12 mile bike leg, I actually decided to quit the race when I found myself dry-heaving on the side of the road after desperately working (and failing) to stay ahead of multiple racers riding mountain bikes on the paved road course.  However, I didn’t know how to get back to the start area without following the remaining section of the bike course (and it was mostly downhill at that point).  So… after taking a couple of minutes to collect myself, I told myself to man-up, finish the bike leg, and I could gallantly quit the race when I got back to the transition area.  By the time I got back to T2 though, my pride reluctantly kicked in and demanded that I “run” the 5k.  Shuffling along with a straight-legged stride that was born of quad, hamstring, and calve cramping in both legs, I carried on an epic battle with an unknown woman 20 years my senior for final race positioning as we jockeyed back and forth – I would pull briefly ahead, then stop and stretch, whereupon she would pass me back.  We probably swapped positions 15 to 20 times over the course of the 3.1 mile run.  I’d like to point out that I was actually able to sprint at the end to finish just ahead of her (that is, until you factor in that her starting wave entered the water 20 minutes after mine)…  Of course, Kevin was waiting at the finish line, having completed the race about 30 minutes before me.