My First Triathlon
Very much like My
First Science Kit,
except not nearly as cool.
Unlike Chris, who started athletics in his infancy (almost),
I came late to actively participating in sports. I was an extremely bookish kid growing up,
and while I loved to watch sports (and still do), I was never coordinated or
fast or skilled enough to participate, either on a team or individual basis
(for my gym credits in high school, I took “Individual and Dual Sports,” where
we played badminton, croquet, and shuffleboard.
I maintain a love of those games even today). A few years after Chris and I got married and
moved to Arizona, I started to notice some weight gain slowly creeping up on
me; while the gain was never a huge amount, after the stress of finishing
college, getting married, moving all the way across the country, finding new
jobs, getting Chris into school, and buying a house, I realized that I had
increased from a size 6-8 to a 12 or so.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a size 12, but I knew then
that it was time for me to start getting active and taking off some of the
weight, as it only gets harder as you get older.
I remember my first runs being so hard; I’d jog slowly down
one street in our neighborhood, then turn the corner and walk down the next
street, jogging the next one.
Eventually, I increased my endurance and skill set to the point where I
could participate in races, and I absolutely loved them. As a runner, you become friends with other
like-minded individuals, and some of these folks didn’t stick just to running;
instead, they also participated in bike races or even – gasp! –
triathlons. Chris took to triathlon like
a duck to water (partly due to his exceptional swimming skills – all those
years on the swim and water polo teams were good practice), and after watching
him for a few years, I decided to try my own.
Chris, at one of his
first triathlons
I settled on the Anthem Holiday Classic sprint triathlon to
serve as my first event, held in early December 2011. I figured it was decently close to the house,
it didn’t interfere with any other events I already scheduled, and it was run
by 4 Peaks Racing, a local racing group that generally puts on good
events. As the event approached, I
balanced out my running with both swimming and biking, to ensure I had some
familiarity with all three of the required legs of the race. Since the race would be held in the pool at
the Anthem Community Center, the swim would be only 400 meters, and we’d
serpentine swim; that is, we’d swim up one 25 meter lane, duck under the lane
rope, swim down the next lane, and repeat.
The pool was only 8 lanes in length, so we’d actually hop out of the pool
at the end of the 8th lane, quickly walk (no running!) back to the
start, hop in, and repeat the swim again.
The bike would be 20K in length (12.4 miles), and it would loop three
times around the streets of Anthem; the run would be a standard 5K (3.11 miles),
and it would close out the event.
They’re still running
this thing!
By this point in my running career (a few years), I’d
finished all of the major distances up to and including a marathon, albeit
slowly. Thus, running races didn’t make
me nuts anymore. However, tris were a
new beast, and as a first class, Type A planner, I went into overdrive the
night before, worrying about how the next day would go. I didn’t sleep particularly well, but I
remember having a dream about my Granddad Ashley (my Dad’s Dad, for anyone
keeping score – deceased for a few years by this point) coming to see me and
letting me know that everything would be fine; I decided to take it as a good
omen for the day ahead. The day itself
dawned gray and rainy, which is exactly what you want for your first tri (set
sarcasm level at 90%, TARS); since this was early December, that meant it was
also chilly, probably in the 50s or so (yes, Arizona chilly). Good thing the Anthem pool is heated!
Chris drove me up to the race site; we unpacked my gear and
waited for transition to open. One of
the interesting “challenges” of the Anthem tri is that the men race at 9am and
the women at 11am. I understand the
staggered start, but since most races begin in the morning, trying to figure
out what to eat and when for a lunchtime race is a unique situation; add that
to the list of things I’d been worrying about prior to the start. We eventually set up my station in transition
and I headed to get body marked.
Looking like a real
triathlete!
Fun story within a story – in addition to the tri, Chris and
I also had dinner reservations that night at Elements restaurant at the
Sanctuary on Camelback to celebrate our anniversary. I didn’t want to show up in a sleeveless
dress with giant black numbers on my arms, so in the shower after the race, I
used my handy dandy pumice stone to scrub them off…along with more than a few
layers of my epidermis. Although the
numbers were gone, the bright red marks left in their place took a week or so
to heal. Hey, kids, don’t do that,
okay? It’s dumb.
Okay, back to race day.
With everything racked in transition, I grabbed my swim cap and goggles,
and Chris and I headed into the pool area.
In my last swim workouts before the race, I’d been timing myself, as the
race asked you to line up in order of roughly how long it would take you to
finish the swim. I figured 8 minutes was
probably a decent figure, so I placed myself in the proper place in line and
stood shivering on the pool deck, waiting for the race to start.
At the magic stroke of 11, the first swimmer hopped into the
pool and we were off! Immediately, I
knew I started myself too soon in the line of swimmers. While my 8 minute pace would have been fine
in a normal pool, I didn’t take into account the time it would take me to
transition under the lane rope; I’ve not yet learned how to do a flip turn, so
at the end of each lane, I’d pause, take a deep breath, and pop my head under
the lane marker, then push myself off the wall and start my swim down the next lane. Although it was annoying to literally be swum
(swimmed? Swummed? Whatever) over by faster athletes, I couldn’t
blame them, as I had vastly overestimated my skills in this particular area,
and the fault of that lies only with me.
Just keep swimming
Eventually, I made it through the set of lanes and moved to
the pool stairs to climb out of the pool.
I shuffled out, passing Chris patiently waiting for me in the cheering
section, and somehow managed to get myself back into the pool to do my second
set of laps. It really was a struggle,
as I wanted to throw in the towel at that point and just be done; Chris told me
later that the look on my face was not one of someone who is having the time of
her life. I endured the next set of laps
and climbed the stairs again, to head out of the pool and into transition. Unfortunately, since my feet were now
completely numb, I misjudged the depth of one of the pool stairs and hit the
end of my big toe against the step, cutting it open. It wasn’t a bad cut, but it was enough to
start bleeding, which only improved my mood.
As it turns out, my official swim time was 10:23, far slower than I
anticipated, which put me 7th out of 9th of all the
ladies in my age group.
So thrilled to be heading back for another round of laps
Done with the stupid frakking swim
Giving the toe the old, “f*** you, you’re fine” glance, I
headed into transition, eager for the chance to put on socks and a jacket. It was cold, you guys. I hopped on my bike and headed onto the
course. As I mentioned above, the bike
course was three loops; it was decently flat out of the Community Center
parking lot and stayed flat for a short while.
However, after taking a right, the course headed down this super steep
hill, where you eventually had to make a hard right into a neighborhood; you’d
come out of the neighborhood, then turn right and come to the hill again – this
time, climbing it – as you went past the Community Center. Thankfully, Chris had raced this course
previously, and he did a nice job warning me of what I could expect. Still, the hills were a challenge, as you can
see from the photo below:
This is the face of someone who is having an amazing time.
Almost done!
I like being on my bike (head injuries notwithstanding), so I enjoyed this part of
the race and ended up clocking a decent time of 50:51, around 14.6 miles per
hour (pretty standard for me, particularly given the hills). Just to prove how poor my swimming truly was,
my time on the bike raised me from 7th in my age group to 4th.
I biked back into transition and started my favorite part of
things, the run. I changed into my
running shoes and off I went! The route
for the run went through some of the paved trails within the city of Anthem and
ended up putting us on the main drag for the city as we came close to the
finish line. I remember loving the run
and finished well for me at the time, doing a 5K in 30:28 and securing my spot
of number 4 in my age group.
Donzo!
Since that time, I’ve done only one other triathlon, which
you can read all about here. For those of you keeping score at home, that
means I’ve DNF’d (Did Not Finish) 50% of the tris I’ve started and have a 100%
injury rate in the sport overall. Given
these factors, as well as my almost complete hatred of the swim part of races
(I like swimming in general, but the scrum that comes from a swim tri start is
horrible), I doubt I’ll be doing any more in the future. However, I’m happy to crew other races, and
I’m really looking forward to doing a half Iron distance tri relay at the
Mountain Man event in August; Coach will be swimming, our boss Eric will be
biking, and I’ll be closing things out and running the half marathon.
Later!
Amy
Comments
Post a Comment