First tri - I'm back!

After 8 years and 2 kids, I ran my first triathlon. My ultimate goal this season is the Montreal Esprit Olympic distance triathlon in September, but I found the one in Ste-Agathe on August 5^th would be a good trial run. It is a 1k swim, 27k bike and 8k run, so doable in terms of where I am with my training now, but enough of a stretch so that it wouldn’t be a cake walk. I also wanted to go through the mechanics of racing again, in terms of nutrition, jitters, transition, gear and whatever else I may have forgotten.

My race started at 9:04 and we arrived around 7:20. After a quick registration and having my number – 336 – written on my arms and legs, I had another hour and a half to wait. There was a little playground on the beach where the kids were busy swinging and climbing, so hubby went off to get my bike off the car. I went into the transition zone with it and picked my spot, closer to the exit than the entrance. I watched as everyone else were setting up their gear too. Lots of people had full bins of stuff, from wetsuits to bicycle pumps, bins for rinsing feet, towels, energy bars, water bottles. You name it. The lady across from me was running her first tri ever and we chatted a bit. Lots of posturing going on. Really fun to observe. I was getting all freaked out by my lack of gear, so I went back to the playground to sip my water and be distracted.

I was tempted to just turn around and go home as it didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore to do this triathlon. My stomach was one big butterfly. Awful, really. Had I eaten enough? Did I eat too early? Did I eat properly over the previous few days? Am I hydrated enough? Do I have enough in me to finish?

It started raining so we huddled under our umbrella like everyone else. Eventually, it was time to get ready. I went back to my bike, lined up my shoes, helmet, gloves and Larabar and put on my bathing cap and goggles and back to the beach and watched the men under 39 start and then the men over 39. I was thigh deep in the water with all the other women watching the two men’s waves swimming away. 

At 9:04, the air horn went off and suddenly I was swimming. The water was murky and there was lots of jockeying for position – an elbow in the face here, someone touching your feet or leg there. The water was fresh, but by no means cold, and so I was happy that I hadn’t bothered with a wetsuit. But I was wearing a new bathing suit that hopefully didn’t have any surprises for me. I was swimming too fast and felt panicky. I really needed to find my stride. Now I’m swimming through weeds. I hate weeds. Yech. Too many people. There was some water in my goggles. I really need to settle down. I stopped to clear my goggles and reestablish my bearings and convince myself to keep going. I had forgotten how hard open water swimming is. There aren’t any lines at the bottom of lakes to follow, nor are there convenient walls to push off at every 25m or so. I focused on trying to get my breathing back to my own rhythm and breathing every third stroke and not every single stroke. I felt like I was going to hyperventilate if I kept that up. Ok – breathe, left, right, left, breathe, left, right, left. Now to find my direction. Yellow bathing caps on my left and on my right. That’s good. Hopefully they are going in the right direction. Suddenly someone swims diagonally across my line. Or did I veer off? Am I swimming diagonally? Breathe left right left breathe. Now I am coming up to the slower men, someobviously struggling and some happily doing sidestroke or breaststroke. They seemed so relaxed. Around the first buoy and it thinned out some more. Breathe left right left breathe. Finally finding my rhythm. There are rescuers lying on their paddle boards along the course. I wonder what we all look like to them? I kept looking for bubbles to follow and once I found someone to trail and perhaps pass, I did it again – bubbles, follow, pass, realign, breathe left right left breathe. Ok I can do this. Rounding the second and last buoy. Ok. This is going to be ok. I’m swimming my race now, and just maintain pace and realize that my arms are tired. My arms never get tired. What should I do? Not much to do really, but keep swimming. I won’t need my arms for anything else today. Crap, here are those weeds again. Yech. Oh, that must mean that we are closer to shore. Ok. Look up and see. Yup, there is shore another few hundred meters out. I swim until my arms can touch the bottom and I stand up and run out of the water, pulling my bathing cap and goggles off at the same time. We run through the sand and it’s raining. I hear and see my husband and kids cheering me on, and taking a picture. 

I look at my watch – 18 minutes. The run to the transition isn’t enough to get all the sand off my feet, so I wipe them as best as I can with the towel I brought. Still lots of bikes here, so I am clearly not last. I put on my running shoes, helmet and bib number belt, opt against my riding shirt with Larabar and run with my bike to the next transition and hop on my bike. 

I find the toe clips and put on my gloves as I ride out. Past the first bend by the parking lot there is a slow steady climb. I use an easy gear and pedal to get my legs to get used to this part of the race. At the top of the hill, I start sipping from my bottle. At this point, being such a useless biker, I am just copying the guy in front of me. I stay with him for a while and no one passes us for a while and when they do, it’s only a few people and they fly past. Especially those with the carbon fiber tires. You can hear them from way back as they come up behind you and then for a while as they speed off. At the top of another big hill I drink again and as we descend, I fiddle with putting my bottle back in its holder and then drop it. I turn to watch it bouncing into the culvert. Hmm. No more hydrating for me then. It has started raining even harder and the cyclist I am just about to pass (yay! I am passing someone on the bike and it’s a woman!) groans with me and we laugh, then onto another hill. I’m pretty happy with my 26-28kph and am pedaling away. I approach a huge line of cars where the police have closed the intersection for us to make a left hand turn, I thank the officer as I ride by and find myself in a pretty residential area. Another right turn and suddenly I’m on a wet wood bridge with slat going in the same direction as me. I am almost thrown from my bike, but regain balance and a huge adrenaline spike. Wow, that was scary. Back onto the highway in a few kilometers and a ridiculously long uphill. Crap. We must be about halfway because of all the riders coming back toward me. Looking at my odometer confirms it. The u-turn is ridiculously sharp, with lots of swearing as we all try to get around it without touching anyone else.

The nice things about all those uphills out, is that it makes for lots of downhills back! I’m zipping along and keeping pace with a few riders, even though I am still frustratingly being past like I’m standing still. At one huge downhill, when I have the presence of mind to peel my eyes off the road and onto the speedometer, I see 62kph. Wow, that’s really fast. Better not look. Take the speed when it’s given to you. Back into the residential part and oh no! There is a rider down at the wooden bridge. All I can see is that he is flat on his back and lots of people tending to him. That’s not good. And then suddenly I’m sliding across the wooden bridge too, but I make it across in one piece. In a few kilometers, coming off the highway I see an ambulance coming towards us. I hope the guy is ok. Now back onto the highway and it’s quick again. Suddenly I am back at the race start, get ready to get off my bike and run with it in the transition zone and I realize that my feet and shoes are soaking wet. Squish squish squish. Now I know why people wear biking shoes and not their running shoes for the bike part. I look at my watch 1:20. I put my bike back in its place, take off my helmet and gloves, grab the Larabar out of my wet shirt and start running. 

The running part starts off along the beach and then out onto the street. This is cruel for two reasons that I can think of – one – sand is going to get into my shoes and will be there for the whole run and two, my legs and I are barely speaking and now I am asking them to run on soft sand. They are far from happy. As I come off the sand I try to open my Larabar, but my hands are all slippery for some reason. Along the lake I struggle to get it open – I can’t open it with my teeth nor pull it open. I am just about to ask someone to open it for me when it opens and I take a bite. A bite that’s too big for the conflicting oxygen that I also need. So I stuff the bite of Larabar in my cheek until I can spare a gulp of oxygen for energy. There is another big uphill and then around a curve. But I don’t see a soul. Am I on the right road? Where is everyone? Then I see people running toward me. Really? Already? I can’t be that slow? Then I see more people running and I follow them. A few people pass me, but I don’t care at this point. My legs are still feeling like lead. I nurse my Larabar for a few kilometers and then take some Gatorade and water at the water stations and keep running. Squish squish squish. The guy handing out water at the 2.5k sign is standing right in front of the sign, so we all ask him to move so that we can see where we are supposed to go – the duathlon is 5k and the triathlon is an 8k run. A big difference. So we keep running. Past 3k, squish squish squish. And then the turn around and a thankful downhill. Boom, just like that, at 4k, I feel great. Ok legs, lets start lengthening the stride and picking up the pace. Squish squish squish. I’m happily plodding along for a while when at the 2.5k marker, I see this guy making the u-turn. He’s with Team Frank, whatever that is. But there are lots of them. Maybe it’s a team triathlon or duathlon. Who knows. Anyway he pulls ahead of me, but he’s struggling, but still ahead of me. So I figure I will keep him in my sights and use him as my pace bunny. We go along for a while and then suddenly he’s stopping. I’m right behind him and say “Go, go…” and he starts up again, without even looking at me. He just needed a bit of encouragement. Perfect. Then he says, “I know, 90% of the way there, right?”. “Exactly,” I say. “Don’t stop now”. So he doesn’t, and he stays beside me. We run along and then he says, “But, I’m really hurting”. “One more big hill” I say. So he runs up the hill with me and it’s a brutally long climb. At the top I say, “That’s it. Now it’s all downhill”. We finally see the lake again and I say “There’s the beach and the finish line. There’s no way you can stop now.” And he doesn’t. We run side by side until I see someone way ahead running backward and my friend waves at him. “He’s running backward?” I ask, thoroughly deflated. “It’s my brother” he says. So Brother runs up to us to encourage my friend to the finish and off they go. Just a few hundred meters left along the beach and I sprint like I never sprinted. I vaguely hear “Go Mamalama” from the bleachers. I pass a few more people and cross the line, completely spent. The marshal takes off my chip and I go in search of calories and water. I look at my watch 2:10:50. A pretty respectable 22/43 women.

I wander back to my bike and my husband and kids are soon there too. I am ecstatic and felt great! So proud of my achievement. Proud of it physically, but also being able to handle it mentally. It was hard dealing with the pre race jitters, the swim panic and mentally getting through the run. Thankfully my friend distracted me for the last few kilometers.

My eldest sons first question when he saw me was “Did you win a medal, Mama?”. The guy at the rack beside me, looked up and smiled, when I said, “No, but I had a lot of fun!”