One Time I Did A Triathalon

I'm quick to say "But just a sissy one" but if I'm being 100% completely honest, that wasn't sissy. And I'm 100% convinced that I'm hardcore.

Unless you did the longer one, in which case I fully recognize that mine was just for sissies. But secretly I'm proud of me anyway.


I participated in the Novice tri. It means that I swam 150 yards (meters?), biked 2.5 miles, then ran 1.5 miles.

Some of the people I was with did the Sprint distance. They swam 350 yards, biked 12 miles, then ran 3.2 miles.

Other people I was with did a relay Sprint. So one person swam, one person biked, and a different person ran.


The most stressful part of this triathalon for me was the transitions. Because while I'm OK with jumping in the pool and swimming until they say stop, I am NOT OK with jumping out of the pool and running in a swimsuit all drippy and gross to the transition area. I was fairly confident I would screw it all up (which I did) and worried an inordinate amount about how I would set up my transition area and what I was forgetting.

All my transition stuff. I finally decided on this stuff and it was good.

 As I've mentioned before, my signing up for this thing was pure peer pressure. I've been swimming with some people in my ward, and when Tracy started coming with us she pretty much immediately signed up for the tri. Then continued to remind me how cool it was. So I did too.

But this picture adequately illustrates the difference between Tracy & Me. She is cool and hardcore and tough and "gonna kill it!" and I am "....ner......" And not tough. And only sometimes cool. And rather than murder it, I simply survived.  

The race info sheet said that transition setup and body marking would be from 6 - 7:30. Body. Marking. The pictures in my head looked something like these.

 

But when I got there it was just a dude & a lady each wielding sharpies standing in the corner of the gym. I think they probably had special training not to make fun of my farmer's tan. 

They did all the hard-core tri people first. And because it was an indoor swim they staggered start time 8-10 seconds per person. 370 People starting in 8-10 second increments = 40 minutes of sitting around waiting for their people to finish starting before we started starting. Tracy & I sat in the bleachers and watched the sprint starters, there were some who were serious swimmers who knew exactly what they were doing and how long it would take them, and some who doggy paddled the whole way. It was a bit stressful to watch.

After the swim in the transition area I went to backtrack a bit and slipped turning my ankle. It wasn't SUPER bad, but it did hurt and by the time I finished the bike I was tired and hurting so I walked a good deal of the run.

Fortunately this photographer caught me while I was at least pretending to jog (and adjusting my earphones). I know I look like a dork, but I like this picture because I do not look like I'm dying (which I was).

The run was long and lonely, and my music wasn't loud enough. I rediscovered that only the embarrassment of asking someone else to stop, is motivating enough to keep me running the whole way.

One cool thing about triathalons is that they give you a medal just for existing at the end. You don't even have to be fast or awesome or ANYthing. They just give it to you because you aren't dead. Isn't that nice of them? Also does this medal make you think of the 80s? I didn't really live in the 80's (born in '85) so I can't really say that, but it's just so.... I don't know..... anybody else?

The Survivor Medal

Of course after the medal, I made Josh take roughly 9,000 pictures of me because there's no telling if I will ever do something this cool ever again.

I made Josh take an unreasonable number of pictures. And almost all of them look at least this dumb. 

But then Josh told me to take off my hat. So I made fun of him, and  his shutter finger was quicker than my "put it back on!" reflex. There is a good reason they tell you to wear a hat for triathalons. Swim cap + bike helmet + run DOES NOT = cute.

Hatless Amy Post Race

Josh made it there early enough to see me come in on the bike and head out for the run. I don't think there are words that can adequately express to me how encouraging it was to see my boys (all 3 of them) cheering me on and being proud of me. I'm a lucky girl.

Tommy and Mommy. He didn't want me to hold him because I was still wet (and cold), but he  did want to be held because I'm mom. It was a hard time. Poor boy.

On one hand I'm really ridiculously unreasonably proud of myself. 

On the other hand it was a bit of a letdown. The staggered start times mean that nobody finishes or starts together, and for most of the race I was on my own. That is a lonely way to go and for me the beauty of a race is the energy of EVERYBODY else playing. 

Still.....

They gave me a medal!

So.....