Back in June, something came over me and I signed up for a triathlon. Yeah, I know, I'm nuts. Don't ask.
So with images in my head of myself following a strict training schedule, eating a super healthy diet, and walking away from it going "Oh my gosh, I am SO hooked! Where do I sign up for the next one?!?", I proceeded enthused and confident.
Enter: The World Race. Somewhere around the end of July, preparation for THE Race took over, and "training" took a spot on a very lukewarm back burner.
Well today was the big day! How exciting! (HAAAA!) Let me allow you inside my head for this strange experience. Be warned….there is no real substance in this blog, and it is mostly just me using my WR blog as a diary for my experiences in general to look back on and laugh one day….
Today arrived with a strange and slightly amusing twist in the original plan. Throughout the past couple of months, I have had several people jump on board to do this with me, some just saying they would do it, some actually signing up, and a good friend who would've been there if a flight back into the country hadn't been switched at the last minute.
My sister and a few of my best friends had to work, and I felt bad to ask any of my other friends or family to get up at o'dark thirty just to hang around waiting to see me run by. My mom tried to absolutely insist on coming when she realized all of my supporters had bailed out, but I talked her out of it, not wanting her to have to deal with all of the hassle of finding the place over an hour away, park, try to find me, etc. Against her will, she consented to let me take it on solo, as I convinced her I would be fine.
The point: as it turned out, I did not know a soul there other than myself.
According to the website, which had various bits of contradicting information, I had to be there to pick up my "packet" (whatever that is) by 7:30. Naturally, I pulled into the very last spot in the parking lot at about 7:45, to be warmly welcomed by a few zealous volunteers squawking at me to "HURRY UP! Registration is closing!"
I shuffled up the hill through the fog on this murky, ugly, foggy Sunday morning. My race "preparation" phase this morning went something like this:
After being the absolute last one in line out of 1176 people, I received my number (1010, woot woot) and hurried off to get set up in the "transition area". I hooked my bike on the rack, and realized I had lost the safety pins they had given me to attach my number to my shirt. Starting to feel a bit uneasy about how seriously the volunteers (who were collectively giving me the stink-eye) were taking my tardiness, I ran back to the registration tent to get some more, then back to the transition area, pinned my number on my shirt, then realized I forgot the ankle strap to attach my timing device, ran back to the registration tent, then finally decided I was ready to go.
No, wait….turn back around and run back to my set up area…i forgot to take off my clothes for the swim, which comes first. By this point, the pre-race information and pep talk was going on in the distance where I couldn't hear a durn thing being said, and goodness knows, if anyone needed to be given some direction in all this, it was me. I shed my clothes in the typical fashion of someone in a hurry (shoes awkwardly came off last), grabbed my goggles, and…wait, where is my swim cap? In a last ditch effort to look like a real triathlete, I had grabbed an electric-blue swim cap out of my car that I had stumbled upon earlier in the summer, and apparently somehow managed to lose it between my car and here. Great.
I made it back up to the waiting/orientation area just in time to hear everyone cheer and start high-fiving all the other women they were doing this with as the instruction concluded. I proceeded to walk around asking different people single questions about what to do, so as not to look like I hadn't been present at the orientation. Right. Ahem.
The race began, and I found myself facing an hour and a half wait until my group got to start. I spent this time feeling like an invisible onlooker, as I marveled at this strange dream-land I found myself in. This triathlon is for women only, and there were ages 12-70 all present, with teams of people in matching uniforms, high school athletes, young moms, retired people, etc. I watched, bemused, as people prayed, sucked on packets of protein goo, gave each other pep talks, did breathing exercises, stretched, and took pictures to remember this epic day. I guess maybe I had failed to realize this was kind of a big deal to most of these people.
Finally, it was my group's turn to start, so I kind of meandered my way into line to go get in the pool and eased along, still feeling like an observer in a sport I have never heard of in a country I have never been to.
"EXCUSE ME MAAM! ITS YOUR TURN! GET IN THE POOL!"
Huh? What? Is he talking to me? Indeed, one of the enthusiastic volunteers was shouting over the excitement and telling me to get in the pool.
Wait. WHAT? Oh, you mean I am PARTICIPATING in this race? Holy cow, I think he is right! I jump in feet first and begin swimming. I am relieved to find that this is no Olympic competition…some of these women are swimming so slow that I think they may actually be at a stand-still, just refining their back-floating skills. I power forward feeling like a real triathlete (!), narrowly missing a swift kick in the head from a froggy-kicking breast-stroker.
I finish the swim and shuffle off to the transition area, completely forgetting that I am being timed, and I take my sweet time and have a nice, leisurely dry off session. I eye a 64 year old (they wrote our ages on our calves) with increasing suspicion as she speed-eats a hard-boiled egg and rushes her bike to the start line. The ground is littered with protein-goo packets and power bar wrappers. I start thinking Bojangles sounds good as I jump on my bike and realize that the safety pins I had lost earlier were in fact scattered throughout my right shoe. I say a quick prayer that none of them pop open, which triggers me to remember to check my records for my tetanus vaccine for THE Race.
The bike ride was fairly uneventful, aside from my obvious lack of "road etiquette" for lack of knowledge on the subject. I finally decided to just stick to one spot and let people scream and pass me whenever they wanted.
"HARD PASS ON THE LEFT!!" screeched a 57 year old as she flew by me….for the record, the over-55 crowd were definitely out to prove something and I was most intimidated by them for sure. I glanced over my shoulder, startled, and almost lost control of my bike, swerving wildly out of control for a moment. I glared enviously at her skinny road-bike tires and decided that my big, fat, mountain-bike tires were a disadvantage time-wsie, and that it would be fair for me to subtract several minutes from my final time. I berated myself for a moment for being so ill-prepared that I didn't even bring a sippy-top water bottle, and was too afraid to try and unscrew the lid on the one I had for fear of falling and getting run over.
I was dreading the run the most. I sincerely dislike running. People who say that they actually enjoy doing this are a great mystery to me. At some point on this last part, I started to get really, really amused at this whole scene, to the point that I was almost getting wobbly(er) from suppressed laughter. All of these people were watching and handing us water and screaming "YOU CAN DO THIS!", "JUST BELIEVE!", "YOU ARE MY HERO!", "WILL YOU MARRY ME?!" and "I NEED MORE COW BELL!" to name a few.
I was just hoping someone would be holding a sign that said something more along the lines of "It's ok if you can't do this. In fact, here, have a seat in my lawn chair and have a cup of coffee." It never happened. I couldn't understand how people 30 years older and 30 pounds heavier were running past me with such gusto. Maybe they were onto something with the hard-boiled eggs, I think, which reminds me of the deviled eggs I had the day before and I immediately suppress the urge to barf.
I finally finish and find people crying, taking pictures, and popping champagne bottles at the finish line. This is just getting more and more hysterical. I sit down in the grass and take the (thankfully, un-open) safety pins out of my shoe, and decide that I will do it again sometime if I can actually get friends to do it with me. The people in groups seemed to be having a grand old time, and the swimming and biking were actually pretty fun!
It actually occurs to me now that today was kind of a strange little taste of what the World Race is going to be like at times. I am pretty sure I will spend a great deal of it feeling like a bemused onlooker that has no idea what is going on. There will certainly be times that I do not know the rules, etiquette, or seriousness of what is going on around me, and times that I will feel lonely for not being able to communicate with people around me. I am also pretty sure that at some point when my squad leader calls for "Racers over here!", I will watch as a group of 50 young adults backpackers all gather around, and someone will have to nudge me and say "Hey…thats you. You are one of them."
And again I will look up and think Huh? Wait, what? I am actually PARTICIPATING in this Race? Not just reading the blogs and raising the money? Well….alright! If you say so! I like to keep life interesting, so this should jive pretty well.
Overall, it was a really weird but cool experience, and I would definitely recommend getting out of your comfort zone and doing something like this. Now I can check it off of my obnoxiously long bucket list!
I warned you this would be a long, rambly, irrelevant blog! Thanks to anyone who stuck with me through my first triathlon commentary!
"Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us!" Hebrews 12:1. 🙂
