Ah the triathlon, probably one of my favorite memories this year. First let me start by saying that this is probably the stupidest and most awesome thing ive ever signed up to do. (there have been tons of other stupidly awesome things ive done over the years but none i planned to do ahead of time.) Those of you who know me know that I am not Mr. athlete, not to say i am incredibly out of shape but i usually eat whatever i want and its rarely anything healthy. So when signed up for the tri i knew it was a big deal. I would have to train consistently in order to be ready for this. The tri is Swim, Bike, Run in that order: 400 meter swim, 20k bike and 5k run.
October 11th, day before the race. We left bright and early at 8am. The car ride was a riot but i wont go into detail as i have a feeling this is going to be one of the longest posts to date.
We rolled into town around 1130 and made our way to the rec center where the tri was to be held. So we (Kristen, Dre and I) got out and headed in for the meeting, while Lyd and Becca mysteriously disappeared. More on that later.
Anyway the meeting for new triathletes was quite informative. It seemed to last forever! But the time was broken up by random hilarious comments by the instructor/race referee, (he was wearing stripes). Things like "Ok people now that we've covered the swim i want to talk about 2 things. Glass, and Nudity" No explanation, just BOOM 2 completely random, and as it turns out completely unrelated things! After the eternal meeting ended we waited for Becca and Lyd to pick us up. Think reminiscent of grade school where you wait for you parents after school for hours and hours. Except it wasn't nearly that bad :)
Race Day!
We woke up bright and early at 6, Dre had to drag me out of bed but once up we made our way down to the girls room for some breakfast. We got to the site and racked out bikes and got ready for the swim. Now there were close to 600 people in this race so believe me when i say that the pool area was crowded! The race starts at 8 and your individual start time is based on how fast you swim the 400. My time was 8 mins 50 seconds which put me around 8:47 am.
We all lined up around 830, I passed the time praying, exchanging nervous glances with Kristen who for some bizzare reason was swimming later than me, and talking with the people next to me. So im chillin watchin the swimmers uhh swim, and i took a gander into the first lane, and what do I find? A Guy wearing a snorkel! I was like "Oh I'm sorry i must have crashed the scuba diving convention my bad!" But seriously people a snorkel!!!
In front of me was a 57 year old woman from Richmond and behind me was a fellow 19 year old guy from...uhh actually i have no idea where he was from... anyways he was really skinny and wearing Hawaiian flower trunks. Regardless i became quite engrossed in conversation with them.
So i turn around and am shocked to find its my turn to swim. I'll be completely honest my mind went completely blank in that moment. I think i said something stupid like "hi i'm number 397" As if the permanent markings on my arms and legs weren't clue enough! The girl responded with " you go on 30. And this, is what i thought...
"Huh, the clock says 8:47... thats exactly 17 minutes past 30 ... wait a second, whats that small number in the corner? Oh crap thats the second hand and its says 23, shooooooot 7 seconds left!" If you can imagine a dazed deer falling into a pond, thats exactly what I looked like as I sailed into the water. 3,2,1 breath! and i'm off!
Actually the swimming went decently. I mean 1) I didn't drown and 2) I didn't think i was drowning!!! As you may or may not know this whole triathlon mess started out so innocently with "fun" trips to the pool... unlike the triathlon neal came to the some of the pool trips. Drowning is the only way to describe out first attempts to swim laps....but thats another story that might be for another day. Back to the race!
After the first length i realized one thing. The estimated swim time i registered was much faster than I was actually swimming. Oops. The reason I had entered that time was not so much bravado as stupidity. My swim time was based on Kristen's swim time because i wasn't able to make the training session where we actually timed ourselves. and "you swim about the same pace as me".... uh hu now I should have realized that this simply wasn't true, she is a faster swimmer than me. Actually neal had already dubbed her "Michelle Phelps" because she would burn us in the already mentioned pool trips but i digress.
the point is i was being passed by other, better, faster swimmers. Which i was completely cool with until skinny white and flowery flew passed me. You will remember that he had 0% body fat had been in a pool "once or twice" and was wearing Hawaiian shorts. Is there no sense of justice in this world?!?!?!??? Anyway the good news is i finished seconds after snorkel boy who started 10 minutes before me! After jumping out of the pool i headed to transition one and my next great challenge, Unracking my bike.
So i got out ran around the building and found my stuff. I took me about minutes to put on my socks. they were inside out... and my feet were wet. regardless as i was gettin ready to head out i saw Kristen flying out of the pool area. literally flying. I waited a min or so for her since we all wanted to find each other during the bike ride and this made it easy :) For me the biking was the best part of the tri. It was almost all smooth sailing except for a mountain of a hill on winterfield road but that was easily conquered as well.
The Run
This is where it gets good! and bad ugh i'm not even sure.
During the run we were ambushed by Mom, Dad, Lyd and Becca all who had massive signs and were yelling encouragements to us :) it was awesome! Def my favorite part of the day. But before i say anymore you need to know that everyone had their race number written on their arms and thighs, and their age on the back of their calves. So during the run i watching all the people who i pass and who pass me. Keepin score ;) So at about the halfway point i see this old lady bookin it past me. So i look for her number and i swear it said 99.... ninety nine! I'm pretty sure that i read it wrong but still! I felt so lame, getting passed by an old woman is bad, but 99!!!
Besides getting passed by the oldest woman alive the rest of the run went relatively well. my favorite part and a personal triumph came at the end. I was jogging along next to a random girl and we were nearing the finish line. Well i don't know why, but the minute we turn the corner she decided to go Eric Little on me. She takes off like a rabbit with a fox chasing it, or rather like a chicken being chased by colonel sanders. either way i decided that there was NO way she was going to beat me. I pumped my arms and legs and sprinted with everything in me! I didn't just beat her, i destroyed her :D flying across the finish line! And it was all over! time for a nap :) :) :)
