One big bucket list item accomplished: I’ve competed in a triathlon!
Granted, it was a baby-length one…it didn’t even qualify as a “sprint” race. It was a “super-sprint” distance, which means it’s an event designed to give non-triathletes a taste of the sport. And it tasted GOOD!
Four of us competed…Tom and I, my labmate Colleen, and our boss Rich. Rich has done longer triathlons before and is wanting to get back into racing now that his kids are grown. I wanted to do one because it finally seemed possible. I’d gotten pretty fit in indoor spinning (cycling) classes, as had Colleen (my training buddy). One of our instructors talked up triathlons and planted the seed in my head that it might be possible for me to do.
So Colleen got me in the pool and I started to learn to thrash and flail in a moderately propulsive manner. Tom joined us and swam like a fish from the get-go. Growing up on a lake has its perks.
With the exception of Rich, we had classic rookie races with mistakes and technical errors. I vowed not to purchase any new equipment for the race…this can be an expensive sport. So I lacked pedal clips and biking shoes (which from every report make a huge difference in biking efficiency). I had swim goggles but no cap, which I’m sure REALLY adversely affected my drag in the water. (Yes…and the fact that my toenails tended to drag along the bottom had NOTHING to do with my poor swim).
I’ll break down the race for ya: let’s relive the pain together.
The night before:
I watched a couple YouTube videos on how to set up a transition area. No mention of little chocolate donuts. Drat. At least I knew I should bring a towel to dry my feet.
The Swim:
330 yards, which takes Tom 5 and a half minutes, took me about 8. But I stayed calm and clawed along as efficiently as I could, trying to keep my heartrate under control. It was a staggered start with 1 swimmer entering the course every 30 seconds, so I didn’t have to worry about getting kicked in the face. My stroke broke down twice and I had to switch briefly to a side-lying crawl, but at least I didn’t panic. I could never, ever had managed if Colleen and I hadn’t spent so much time training. It’s such a mental exercise for me…all about convincing myself not to freak. I got passed by the 2 swimmers behind me, but no matter…I left the pool feeling strong and ready for the bike.
T1 and the bike:
Getting out of the pool, I paid the cost for my swimming inefficiency. To stay afloat I’d had to kick pretty aggressively, which fatigued my legs. On the 100 yard run to the transition zone I could just trot…couldn’t really run. That might have been good though, since I was barefoot. The transition went well…helmet on and buckled first while my toes dug into the towel to dry off…squat down to put on socks, and then WHOOOOAAAHHH HEADRUSH! I fought through it, pumped my leg muscles to get things circulating again, and tied my shoes. (A serious triathlete would get onto her bike barefoot, shoes already clipped into the pedals, and wiggle into the shoes at 20 mph).
Predictably, 200 yards into the bike race I had my first rookie mistake: my shoelace got tangled in the pedal. I braked and pulled over, dealt with both sets of laces, and watched the next 3 female competitors pass me by. Disgusting.
But I had a secret weapon: a hot rod bike. Tom and I both borrowed bikes from a guy he knows who raced back in the 80’s. I LOVE THIS BIKE. It’s light and fast and responsive, meaning that it tends to get squirrely, but I love the feeling of it. It’s nearly as old as I am but the guys at the bike shop thought it was pretty rad. The brakes are German, the wheel sprockets are French, part of the frame is English and part is Italian. The tires are maybe a half inch wide and they’re glued to the rims, so they’re super-stiff. If you put me behind the wheel of a Lamborghini, it would be totally wasted on me. This bike is wasted on me too. But I love the darn thing.
The bike course was a flat 2 mile loop in town followed by a 4 mile out-and-back with a long steady climb halfway. I was able to reel in all 3 women who had passed me while I was dealing with my shoes…and the credit goes to the bike, not me. My speed was limited not by my endurance or strength, but by my nerve. I just don’t have fine enough control for a bike like that. YET.
T2 and the run:
Time to pay the piper. Because I had pedal baskets to secure my shoes, not clips, I could only minimally use an upward pull to make the pedals go ’round. Mostly I had to use a downward stomp. That emphasizes quadriceps and glute action, which UH-OH! are exactly the muscles you need for running. I screamed into T2, jumped off the bike, grabbed my glasses and headed for the 2 mile run course. Only my legs…what’s wrong with my legs? Who sawed them off and replaced them with sacks of Quick-crete? I had to use a grotesque Frankensteinian gait that used my hip flexor to swing my entire leg forward like a club, to land heavily and be passed overtop by my listing torso. It was like I was half-paralyzed and only the crudest motor commands were reaching my legs.
My wind was gone too…I’d pushed pretty hard on the bike and didn’t have much gas left in the tank. This was without question the least efficient, least elegant, most painful 2 miles of my life. Horrible. The one bright spot was meeting my dear spouse on the course. He’d had a terrible newbie experience too…a major bike malfunction. His seat post kept sliding downward until his legs were up around his ears like he was on a little BMX bike. OK. Maybe that’s an exageration, but that’s my mental image of what happened. He had to stop 6 times on the bike course to raise his seat back up, which I’d estimate cost him 3 minutes. That’s why I met him on the run.
So we plodded into the finish together, strangely exhilirated by all the pain and exertion. Within 5 minutes of stopping, I knew I wanted more. I LOVED it. I loved how technical it was…I’d only done road races before, where all you can do is wait for the gun to go off and start running. I’ve peaked as a runner…I bid speed goodbye when I said hello to 30. So when I run a 5k I know I’ll never be competitive against all the little gazelles. This heifer can’t sustain miles faster than 8:30. But in a Tri, you can compensate for a weakness like that. If you’re smart about transitions you can pick up as much as a minute on sloppy competitors. If you can swim well you’ll be light-years ahead of most of your competition, because most people come to the sport via running. Technique and skill matter so much in triathlon that they can help compensate for age and limitations in conditioning. They won’t make you elite, but they’ll at least help you put together a race you can be proud of.
And that’s my goal for the future: I want to improve my swimming, get ahold of some pedal clips and start training my up-stroke on the bike, and learn to have fresh legs after T2. Because even with a mediocre rookie experience, somehow in the face of all reason, I managed to win my age class!
And to restore my faith that the cosmos is indeed governed by laws and not choas theory, Rich won his age class too.
We’ve been wearing our medals around the lab all week. Kidding. This was such a small race that my medal signifies that I managed to be faster than 7 other amateurs. Lah dee dah. But it sure was a fun end to the event…definitely one for the record books. Even though it wasn’t.
-shauna-
