Kaitlin Sighinolfi knocked 20 minutes off her time in the Nation’s Triathlon last Sunday.
“I did well. It was a beautiful race day,” said the 27-year-old staffer for Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.
Still, she was disappointed that she didn’t break her goal of three hours, coming in just over the mark at 3:04.
Sighinolfi, whose non-Hodgkins lymphoma is in remission, raced as part of Team in Training, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s fundraising endurance-training program. The group raised $2.4 million through the race.
She was hampered by spasming lower back muscles, which she tried to ease with a lot of ibuprofen, plus tape, massage and ice. She called the bike leg of the race “miserable.” The run also hurt.
“That was a little bit of a bummer,” she said. “But you keep putting one foot in front of the other *** and you’re OK.”
Also slowing her down was the crowded conditions of the swim, the first leg of the race. “The swim was ridiculously congested. At one point, I went underwater and just kicked” to try to get around the pack in the Potomac.
Still, her swim time was faster than Mayor Adrian Fenty’s, one of her goals. Sighinolfi, who swam in high school and college, finished the 1.5 kilometers in 26.07 minutes, compared with the mayor’s 28.01.
And she ran for the entire run portion, unlike last year when she ended up walking part of it in the 90-degree heat.
“I was really proud of that,” she said.
Another highlight was her parents, who traveled from Maine to watch her race a triathlon for the first time.
“My dad was the best cheerleader in the world,” she said.
Next up for Sighinolfi is the Savageman Half-Ironman on Sunday, in which she will swim the 1.2 miles for a Team in Training relay.
Then, “a break. I really need one,” she said.
She plans to take two months off from training before she starts gearing up for the St. Anthony’s Triathlon in St. Petersburg, Fla., in April.
And ultimately, Ironman Arizona in 2012.
