I figured I should blog about my first Tri for posterity's sake.. so when I become a world famous Ironman Triathlete I can look back at my first tri and see how far I've come :) .. OK, probably not going to be a world famous triathlete.. but anyway, it was an experience.. not an easy one, but one worth blogging about.
The training for the Tri was very fun, when I was able to do it. I trained with a couple friends of mine who HAVE completed Ironman events, some more than once. Also trained with some friends who have never done a tri before. I think, out of the people who did a tri that weekend, I was the weakest swimmer, but everyone has a weakness. The best part of the training was the riding on Sundays and swimming on Wednesdays with my friends Kellie and Larry. Kellie taught me a lot about swimming and gave me very very valuable pointers on form and technique. Too bad I didn't use half of them in the event (never put my head in the water) but they gave me the confidence to try. Larry and Kellie (father and daughter), Bill and Ollie (father and son) all did the Olympic distance event on Saturday. Jessica and I did the sprint distance on Sunday.
Anyway, on to the description of the race most of this is in response to a question from my siblings on "how did it feel"... so sibs, sorry, you've seen this already. But my IRs may enjoy.
How did it feel?
It didn't feel very good... I've been learning swimming. I got pretty competent in the pool, able to swim freestyle and breathe comfortably. But I'm not at the point where I can do that comfortably in murky ocean water covered in kelp. So I did the whole swim with my head out of the water. While that made me easy to spot by my friends, it made it much more difficult. I basically hyperventilated my way through the swim. I finished that, then got out of the water... tottered my way to the transition area, took off the wet suit, put on a tri shirt, helmet, bike gloves and gulped down some Gatorade...
off to the bike leg, where I was still gasping for breath the whole time. There was an unfortunate optical illusion on the way out of the first of the two out-and-back legs... it looked like we were going down hill.. but my body was telling me it was hard and i was on the easiest gear on my bike and my legs hurt and i was getting passed by EVERYONE. Then I got to the turn around and found out by going downhill that the "out" leg was really uphill. That made the second leg mentally easier, but I still couldn't breathe, and it seemed I was the only one left on the course.
Finally, 3 minute transition to the run, helmet and bike shoes off, running shoes on ... legs killing me, not able to breathe, want to cough or throw up or something... first lap was miserable, second lap was miserable until the last quarter mile where I finally caught my breath and my stride. I did pass people on the run leg.
I ended up finishing 6 minutes behind my friend who I really wanted to beat... but she was thrilled because she had never beat me in anything before (guess what, she's a very strong swimmer). She earned the victory :)
It was hard.. I wouldn't call it "fun" (I call marathons "fun"). I'm not running out to sign up for another one right away but I'll probably do another one some day.. maybe a Half Ironman so I can have more time to get my stride or something in clear water where I can see.
Here are the stats. In case you're wondering, I was 444 out of 517 overall. It was one of the harder hour and a halfs of my short adult onset athletic life, but it was a good experience. Especially now that I look at it with the perspective of all things that have been going on in my lift that have not been helping with training (thank you Shifter for pointing that out!). Yes, Sibs, Kellie and Larry, I'll admit it. I did good. :)
There are pictures from my and my friend's events in the side bar on the right.
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