I Tri Harder

I should be writing a post about Trayvon Martin or about how people tell me I should stop seeing the color of my child's skin or maybe about the relative who freely admits to using the N-word, claiming it can't possibly hurt anyone because it's just a word and words are that whole sticks and stones thing.

But I'm kind of busy right now.

I'm training for another triathlon. A sprint triathlon, but it's got an 18-mile bike ride in it, and that stretches the boundaries of "sprint" in my opinion. I know someone doing a middle distance tri, and that bike ride is only six miles longer.

I did a triathlon two years ago, then couldn't last summer because of my knee injuries -- took out both knees by gardening -- that's how it goes post-50. And I think when I signed up for this tri, there was some amnesia about the amount of time that goes into training for one of these things.

Baby Sis and me sporting our finisher medals two years ago. 

I'm enjoying the training, but once you start closing in on race day, you have to get really serious and train almost daily. There is no "Eh, it's too hot out" let up. It's 91 degrees in the shade? Too bad, I have to saddle up and get out there for an hour-long bike ride. It's 93 degrees in the shade and a thunderstorm is rolling through? Too bad; get out there and do your triathlon club run-swim-bike workout. And the workouts can be very time-consuming, particularly when you're putting all three disciplines together. Those are hours-long workouts. Tough when you work and have a small child and a house and a yard and a garden and bills to pay and you're trying to get off the fast-food-because-there-is-no-time-to-cook treadmill.

Today, Saturday, I needed to get in a long swim, but the cats needed to go to the vet at 8:30 a.m. Yep, I was in the water before the clock struck 7 a.m.

I'm envious of the women who are racing in our local town's women's only triathlon -- they get to race tomorrow and have it over with. Me, I will be going out for yet another training -- a "brick"training -- a long bike ride -- the plan is for 14 miles -- followed immediately by a run. I'm not sure what the etymology is of the term "brick" other than that your legs feel like bricks when you start running after dismounting from your bike.

And I'm worried about my race. There are actual cutoff times for each leg -- which is not the case in tomorrow's race. So if I don't get the swim done under the 30-minute cutoff time, my race is over. That would suck. And I'm pretty much the slowest swimmer in the water. They make no distinction between senior athletes like myself and 20-somethings. I think we seniors should get a break. If I get to the run, I'm golden. That's a 60-minute cutoff. First of all, I come into this sport as a runner, and secondly, you can walk a 5km in 60 minutes.

I was trying to look happy in my photos the last time around. No cut-off times to worry about. I'll probably look worried in all photos this time. If I'm fortunate enough to make the swim cutoff time.

I'm sure the race organizers think the cutoff times for the swim and the bike are equally ridiculously easy, but I can tell you that as a non-swimmer and a "I like rails to trails flat courses" cyclist, they are looming in front of me as menacingly as Mt. Everest.

I finally bit the bullet and joined the triathlon club, which entitled me to train with the club. I did my first club training Wednesday night. I was scared of the swim. Like fretting about it for 24 hours in advance of it.

Baby Sis and me two years ago. She's a naturally strong swimmer and has never had any fear of the water. I was trying to put my game face on, but not convincing anyone.

A lot of people dread the swim portion. It's intimidating to swim out into a lake in water above your head and have people splashing all around you and bumping into you. And I've heard the stories of people having people swim right over top of them. Because of the thunderstorm, we had to wait 30 minutes before we could get in the water, so the organizers suggested we either do the bike or run first. So I trotted through a 2-mile run. Then, huffing and puffing, shoved my swim cap and goggles on, jogged down to the lake and realized I was going to start my swim out of breath.


Here's what tri training does for you. The lake bottom was mud. Squishy, goopy between-the-toes mud. I'm not a fan of squishy mud. I'm a fan of my backyard pool. But that night I didn't care about the mud. I just waded through it until I was deep enough to start swimming. Mud-schmud. I just wanted to get in the water. And then, still catching my breath from my run, I headed out for the first of two buoys that formed a triangle in the lake.

About three minutes in I started to feel panicky that I was too tired from my run to swim the 550 meters or so this course is purported to measure. Getting to buoy number one was seeming to be challenge enough. Plus the water felt warmer than the air, so it wasn't cooling off my body temperature. Then I employed my running race strategy. Don't think about the whole race; think about one part at a time. So I focused on getting to the first buoy. When I turned that corner, I focused on getting to the second buoy. By the time I got to that buoy, I just had to swim to shore. And every time I felt like "I'm too tired to be doing this swim," I channeled Dory from Finding Nemo. "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming."

As far as getting bumped and smacked by other swimmers, I found people to be very courteous. Once they realized they had come up on me, they went around me. When I feel panicked that someone is going to swim over the top of me, I tend to use my hands and feet to let them know I'm there and I'm not going down without a fight. I apologize to my fellow athletes for my instinctive "fight" response. In the water, I can't do "flight." A strong current very intently kept pushing me to the into the pack, despite my plan to stay to the outside and out of the fray.

What I realized just today during my pool workout was that I swam that entire open water course front crawl, except for a couple of breaststroke buoy-sighting-course-correction strokes. That means face in the water between every breath. I spent two years in the beginners class during swim lessons because I so did not want to put my face in the water. The last tri I did, I swam at the back of the pack with a volunteer buddy, doing the breast stroke with my head out of the water the entire time. During this open water training, I didn't even think twice about the fact that my face was going in the water. Even though I couldn't see bottom.

So regardless of whether I make the cutoff time out of the water in two weeks -- two weeks, yikes!! -- I've come a long way. I've already done more than I would have ever thought possible, especially after last year's knee injuries. I've hit that "bring it on" point and will be spending the next two weeks on pins and needles waiting for my chance. I just need to make it through the swim. "Just keep swimming." And than biking. And then running.

I'm old, I'm fat, I'm slow, and I know it. But I'm going to tri my hardest.