First Triathlon
So yesterday I did my first triathlon. Woo hoo!
My sister and I got roped into doing a triathlon by a friend in NYC, who has been doing them for years. (He is now training for the Ironman.) He told us about one on Staten Island called the “Flat as a Pancake Triathlon”: only 1/4 mile swimming, 12 miles biking, and 3 miles running. So we took him up on it and drove down for a short weekend. And boy did we train. Oh, that should be a question…boy, did we train? No! How hard can it be, such a little teeny weeny triathlon? Okay, we did three things. We went swimming twice during the month of July, just to make sure that we could actually make it for a quarter mile without drowning. And one of those days that we went swimming (in the pool) we biked home (2.5 miles) and then ran a mile and a half! That was about a week and a half before the triathlon. And then two days before, we ran 3 miles. So we felt toooootally prepared.
We stay at our friend’s place on Saturday and get up ungodly early (5am) on Sunday to drive to the tri. They give us little pink & orange swimming caps & we set up our mountain bikes and running shoes in the “transition area” where we’ll be in between swimming, biking, and running. Then we head out to the beach. The swim is along the beach, so you never really go out into any deep water. The big surprise is that there are stinging jellyfish in the water. Fun! It was at this point that I think, “I’m not gettin’ paid enough for this,” and wonder if this whole triathlon thing is a good idea. My sister and I are in different “waves” (she’s in the under 30 wave), so she leaves first to get stung by the denizens of the deep.
And now, in this corner, weighing in at many hundreds of pounds, is the pink cap wave! Women over 30. I figure I’ll be somewhere near the average in speed, so I put myself right in the middle of the pack. We’re all standing together, each person one or two feet from the next. Just picture that in your mind, 50 people all standing in the water, each one a foot or two from the other people all around them. NOW imagine that someone blows a whistle and all these people go from vertical to horizontal and start swinging their arms and kicking. I felt like I was in a bar fight!
After 30 seconds of free-style, where every stroke was a punch and the whole time I was getting kicked in the head, I said “forget this” and switched to backstroke, aiming toward the shallow water. I wanted to be out of the crowd, so I stayed on the shore side of everyone. The backstroke was great. My backstroke was about the same speed as the middle-of-the-pack’s free-style. Unfortunately I kept veering off toward the shore, zigging and zagging as I realized I was pointing the wrong direction.
Then we all ran up to the beach to the transition area to put on shoes & helmets and hop on bikes for three four-mile loops. Out of over 400 people there were only a handful with mountain bikes – everybody else had zippy road/racing bikes that weigh about 2 ounces. Boy were they sorry when we got to the dirt road section! Oh yeah, there was no dirt road section. But I did pass a handful of people, mostly others with mountain bikes (as hundreds of zippy-bike people whizzed by me on the left). About half-way through the biking I started to feel nauseous…this was my big fear for the triathlon. I always have trouble exercising in the morning because I have low blood pressure. So I took the opportunity to drink nearly an entire bottle of water while I was biking, and started to feel better.
Drop off the bike & go for the run. I’m not a runner; jogging makes my hips & knees ache. I prefer sprinting. My plan had been to sprint/run until my lungs gave out, then walk fast till I caught my breath. So I’m thinking, “okay legs, run!” And my legs are saying, “Say WHAT? Are you crazeh??” No go. So I jog, then walk, then jog, and it’s all very unpleasant. I take their officially sanctioned water at the mile mark, and at the half, and then my legs remember how to run! So for a quarter mile or so, I’m running, and it feels great. Then I get tired again and jog…but then when we get to the last quarter mile I start running again. I’m passing all these people (okay, I’m passing a few people) and then I see the finish line and I really RUN. It felt great! I ran, ran to the finish line, some kindly woman took off my hi-tech ankle bracelet with all my time information on it, and I stagger (literally) over to where our friend is waiting.
Huzzah! I did a triathlon! And it really wasn’t deadly, I didn’t drown, I don’t even feel overly tired today. I even ended up coming in 6th out of the “first-time females” (one hour and thirty minutes exactly). Would I do it again? Yeah, I think I would, as long as it was a short one like this. Would I train more? Well, I would definitely try to figure out the whole blood-pressure/electrolyte/calorie/drinking-water thing, and I would do maybe a bit more cardio & two trial runs (swimming biking and running) during the two weeks before. But it’s not that much of a commitment. Yes, even lazy people like myself can enjoy (?) triathlons. Even you! No, not YOU, person who is already in better shape than me, YOU, you who think that they would never be able to do something like that. It was pretty fun.
Triathl On!
