Well, last Sunday Jessica and I accomplished our goal. We completed a sprint triathlon. It was an amazing experience, and I had a TON of fun. Fair warning: LONG POST.
The weekend started out a bit hectic. Tim and I drove down to Texas on Friday after he got off work. We stayed in a hotel that was literally in ikea's back yard. He was so thrilled. The next morning, we ate breakfast and headed to Ikea. To Tim's credit (he did a lot of 'prep work' beforehand) the trip was incredibly painless. Ikea was not nearly as crowded as it was the first time I went, and Tim had a list of exactly what we were looking for. We were in and out of there in an hour! Initially we had some doubts as to whether or not we could fit everything in my sister's jeep liberty with my bike in there. That wasn't a problem either. Tim made it all fit. After Ikea we went to our favorite Texas sushi place which was close by. It was amazingly good. After lunch, we went to the race site to pick up my race packet. It was still way too early to check into the hotel, so we decided to see a movie. We saw "State of Play". It was a good thriller. We both liked it a lot. Finally, we went to the race hotel and checked in. From there, it was just a matter of ordering pizza (healthy I know) and waiting for Jessica and her parents to get there.
As I'm sure you already know (especially since my only follower is in fact Jessica), Jessica and Nick suffered a death in the family and Jessica didn't end up getting to the hotel room until around 10pm the night before the tri. She was really stressed, and to tell the truth, I was stressed for her. The death of Nick's sister hit her hard, but she still had to be strong for Nick and his family. It's not exactly the type of thing you want on your mind the night before a big race. Shortly after the arrival of Jessica and her parents, we all tried to go to bed. The key word here is 'tried'. For whatever reason, none of us slept well. I think I ended up sleeping about 3 hours before the alarm went off at 4:45.
We got up and got out to the course by around 5:30. For those who don't know, I ran cross country in high school, and the moments (or days) before each race were always hell for me. I used to get so nervous, speech was nonexistent, and I looked and felt like I was going to throw up right up until the race. That was how I felt Sunday morning. We picked up Jessica's packet, got marked (121 and 22 are still on my leg), got our chips (which a little kid told us how to put on), went potty (I wasn't about to do the race having to go), and got our wet suits on. We met quite a few other "newbies" before the race. It was nice knowing we weren't the only rookies there. We got in the water a little before the race to test it out, and it actually wasn't that bad. Not nearly as cold as lake arcadia was less than a week before. Getting out though, was awful. It was SO cold! I was halfway between not being able to wait to get back in the water, and dreading the start of the race with every fiber of my being.
Jessica and I were in the women's 39 and under bracket. Apparently our race group was quite large. Nothing was really registering for me at that point though so I didn't notice. The way I understood it, we were to get in the water and float for a good 2 mins before they would actually start the race. Unfortunately it didn't really work out that way. I felt like as soon as I got in the water, the start sirens were going off. Oh well, off we went!
The swim was much more difficult than I could have ever anticipated. I'd done an open water swim before, but that was way shorter, and with far fewer people. This was really different. I got kicked and groped as expected, but I didn't expect to inhale an ungodly amount of water about a quarter of the way through the 500m swim. I don't know if it was because I was trying to actually see where I was going or if I was just disoriented, either way, much water entered my lungs. As one might expect, I immediately started hacking. I switched to breath stroke to try and calm myself down (breath stroke is much easier for me) and went another quarter of the way doing that. Unfortunately, my lungs were still freaking out so eventually I decided to swallow my pride and do back stroke for a while. Even though being on my back didn't help me get the water out of my lungs, it did allow me to breathe freely so that helped. I can safely say that I have never been more humbled in my life. "Why?" you ask, "doing backstroke on an open water swim isn't that humbling". Wait for it. Shortly after turning around the last buoy, I began to hear someone talking. It sounded like they were talking to me so I lifted my head out of the water to see a kayak official guy sitting not five feet away from me. "Are you alright?!" "I'm fine!" I answered knowing they were beginning to worry because of my excessive coughing. Naturally, my strained and coughed out response did nothing to comfort the kayak officials. As I swim away, I can hear them calling to one another..."Hey! Watch that one! Ya the one in the pink! Just watch her, she's coughing a lot!" So the message went, kayak to kayak, following my deformed swimming stroke all the way to the end of the swim.
When I got out of the water, there were people yelling at me to "just get on my back". Dirty! But I did anyway and let them rip my wetsuit off. I jogged to the transition station carrying my wetsuit and arrived just in time to see Jessica leaving. I hurry to put on my shirt, shoes and helmet and race after her on my bike. I'm still coughing/breathing erratically at this point, but I'm competitive. I can't help it. I knew that I was one of the last ones out of the water, and I felt this incredible urge to redeem myself. I mean, the officials thought I was drowning on the first leg of a triathlon! How embarrassing! So off I went, trying to balance my fierce competitive urge with spastic breathing. Sometime about halfway through the first 6 mile loop, I look ahead and see what I think is Jessica's jersey about 400m away. Yessss! My goal for the rest of that loop was to keep her in my sight. I'd catch up on the uphills, only to fall behind again on the downhills (Tim informed me later that I was one of 2 mountain bikes used in the race. Stellar.) On the second loop, I finally caught up to and passed Jessica. From then on, my goal was just to stay ahead. Passing someone else would've been nice, but I think it only happened once. On a positive note, my lungs had finally quit freaking out. I was able to control my breathing and coughing was at a minimum. I finished the bike (the official guy really liked that I could hop off my bike while it was still moving lol). I then jogged over to the transition area and put my bike up. This transition was a lot faster than the first one, probably because all I had to do was put up my bike and take off my helmet.
As I jog out of the transition area, I see Jessica coming in. She's close, but I'm pretty sure I can stay ahead in the run. The run itself, was not quite what I expected. The course description said that the run course was "hilly and challenging" but really, the only challenging hill was the one coming out of the transition! It was steep and long. The rest of the hills weren't really hills at all. They were just short inclines coming out of a series of underground tunnels we had to run through. However, this doesn't mean that this particular 5k was fast. I was tired, and my chest was tight so I took it slow. In my head during the run (and during the bike for that matter), I was just immensely thankful to be out of the water. I didn't care about much else. If I got tired, or if my chest tightened up suddenly, I would think "well at least I'm not swimming". That sounds horrible, but it really did help to lift my spirits. In general, the run was pleasant. I saw Jessica shortly after I made the turn-around (a little too soon actually) and decided to speed up a bit. Couldn't let her catch me now! I finished the run strong and in high spirits. Tim was waiting for me at the finish to give me a big hug and promptly told me I smelled. Thanks for that hon.
Jessica finished about 2 mins. later. I met her at the finish line and gave her a big hug since her boyfriend couldn't be there to do it. We both accomplished all of our goals! It was definitely a success.
Perhaps the coolest part about the whole experience for me, was that apparently I've inspired Tim. I've been trying all year to get him to work out with me and being the stubborn guy he is, he staunchly resisted my attempts. However, after the tri, he told me that he might like to do one with me! I didn't really take it seriously, but since then, he has joined the YMCA, and has swam every day! He looks at bikes online (I now have a serious case of bike fever/envy), and talks about dates/goals for future tris. I'm so excited! If he sticks with it, this will be a bigger reward than the King Tut could have ever given me (we didn't get medals =().
Right now, we're looking at doing a tri in September and maybe one in the summer as well. Jessica is talking about doing an Olympic distance in September, and I just might have to join her. After all, I can't let her complete an olympic before me now can I?
So to conclude this obscenely long post, the tri was the experience of a lifetime. I got more out of it than I ever expected, or put into it, and I can't wait for Tim and I to experience it together. I'm not sure when I'll start training again, but rest assured, my monthly posts will continue! Until then...