TriGingahTri

When I first started telling people that I was training for my first triathlon, I always found myself qualifying it: “It's ‘just’ a sprint tri” or “It’s a mini-sprint tri.” I didn't want to feel like I was conning people into thinking that I was doing a full Ironman (140.6 miles) triathlon, since my triathlon was a considerably shorter distance (250yd swim, 7mi bike, 2mi run). Before learning much about triathlons, the Ironman was my only point of reference; I figured that was the case with most people.

Having finally gone from a TRYathlete to a TRIathlete on September 17, 2011 at the Women’s Triathlon for the Cure at Portage Lakes, Ohio, I can confidently attest that no qualifiers or minimizing adjectives are necessary. Regardless of the overall distance, a triathlon is hard. It was the most difficult physical test I’d ever subjected my body to...and I'm excited by the prospect of doing it again. (But I'll stick to sprints or perhaps an Olympic-distance tri at most.)

Make no mistake: I have a lot of training to do, especially incorporating what I learned from my experience at Portage Lakes. I saw women from age 10 to age 70+, in every shape and size, with everything from a cruiser bike to a fully equipped tri bike, completing this body-, mind- and soul-empowering event. Major kudos to HFP Racing for organizing these events; I just wish they offered events closer to New York State. (I am hoping to revisit my collegiate home of Morgantown, WV, for the Women’s tri next year.)

I had a lot of expectations about this event, and since I knew it would be one of the most challenging experiences of my life, I made both time-based and a non-time-based goals. My time-based goal was to finish between an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and a half. My non-time-based goal was to complete the course, fully embrace what my body and will are capable of, and enjoy and learn from the experience.

I was incredibly fortunate to be accompanied by my friend and tri mentor, Ironman Tiffany, who is also the most awesome race sherpa one could ask for. She provided invaluable bits of tri wisdom that I wouldn’t even have thought to ask about, she carried a lot of my stuff, helped me set up my transition area for maximum efficiency, and she took pictures to document several parts of my race. She also came equipped with a cowbell and a barely rested voice (from being a race sherpa for friends at the previous weekend’s triathlon) to cheer me along.

I’d tried to prepare myself as much as possible mentally for the event, but a funny thing happened on the way to the tri: expected challenges fell away to unforeseen challenges.

For the swim, I expected that feeling my feet touch the river bed would skeeve me out, or that the water would be too cold on this cool mid-September morning. In reality, the river bottom was soft but not overly squishy (and no lake critters touched me, thus staving off imminent critter-induced cardiac arrest), and the water was actually warmer (about 73 degrees) than the air (low 60s) or the sand on the lake shore (brrr...). The big surprise during the swim was the sudden and quite unwelcome discovery that I couldn't see once I put my head in the water (accompanied by an almost audible reaction of Oh, FUCK! upon making this discovery), since lake water is murky. I, of course, had done all of my swim training in an indoor pool. Lesson learned. I went slightly off-course, and when I brought my head up to sight my location, I saw most of the swimmers to my left and I had to adjust. In the process, I swallowed some lake water (yum...NOT), struggled to find my breathing and get into a rhythm with my stroke. I fatigued remarkably easily and a couple of times I ended up walking in the (thankfully) waist-deep water for a few moments until I could catch my breath and get back to swimming. I had managed to avoid the rapid heart rate reaction to the start of the tri that Tiffany had warned me about; I think having a two-by-two time-trial start (swimmers went into the water in pairs, with each pair starting about 15-30 seconds after the previous pair), which greatly reduced the likelihood of being accidentally kicked by another swimmer, enabled me to focus on my swim stroke. Too bad much of that focus initially got redirected to thoughts of OMG, I can’t SEE!!!

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but if that had occurred in training instead of a race, I can honestly say I would have bagged the whole thing. The public pressure of a race is often the only thing that keeps me going when I’m not having a good run or ride (or, in this case, swim). I admire the training discipline that my runner/triathlete friends have. My own discipline tends to wax and wane; another work in progress for me. I’ll get there, one baby step at a time.

I hoped to finish the swim leg in seven minutes, but that was my anticipated time in the water; the swim split is timed from the moment you go into the water until you enter T1 (first transition). My official split was 7:35, which included chugging uphill from the lake shore to the transition area, so my time in the water was probably around six minutes. And that's with the challenges I experienced. Yay me!

Once I was out of the water, I was headed to my strength: the cycling leg. I expected my cycling time to be strong. In reality? Well, the course had these little things called hills (well, maybe not so little) that slowed me way down on the ascent, but were far more forgiving on the descent, which enabled me to make up a bit of time. I completed the seven-mile ride (two loops of the course) in 31:24—not even close to the fastest I’ve ridden, but damn near lightning-fast for me when you consider how much the hills slowed me down. I’ve never liked courses with multiple loops, but in this race I used it as a learning experience: whatever I encountered the first time around, I’d have an opportunity to learn from for the second loop.

The race's biggest surprise (yes, even more than all the hills) was the fact that my feet were absolutely freezing from the jaunt to T1 from the lake, and within the first quarter mile on the bike, my feet were numb from the cold. As if cranking my carcass uphill wasn’t challenging enough. (I found myself wondering how on earth Ironman triathletes deal with a situation like that and was very thankful I was “just” doing a sprint tri.) The numbness didn’t fully dissipate until I was nearly finished with the run.

Oh, yeah. The run. Even with the still-rehabbing-but-trying-to-be-game Hammie on the roster, I figured I could muddle through the two-mile run without too much effort. (Insert fate’s maniacal laughter here.) Again, I didn’t anticipate that there would be hills. Or that my feet would still be numb from being cold. Or that the course would be predominantly trails, not asphalt. And I’d never done a single trail run training session. All of my races had been run either entirely or predominantly on asphalt. While trail running helps strengthen you for running on asphalt, the opposite is not true. At one point during the run, I threw all thoughts of time out of my mind and focused on finishing.

One benefit of the multiple-loop course was the fact that every time I passed near the transition area, I heard Tiffany (my “mentor from Mentor”) cheering me on. When I finally came around to the final turn, I was smiling with the knowledge that I was almost to the finish line—yes, I actually was going to do this! I even managed to do the awkward turtle hand gesture as I chugged along the final hundred yards.

Remember my time goal? Given all the walk breaks I needed to take on the run, I figured I’d be lucky to meet even the slow end of my time goal. I was all set to celebrate the accomplishment of finishing
my first tri. I caught up with Tiffany after the finish and she showed me the elapsed time on her watch: 1:12:20. I was stunned. I asked if that included both transitions. She said she turned on her watch when I entered the water at the start of the swim and didn't turn it off until I crossed the finish line at the end of the run. I’d managed not only to finish the tri, but somehow beat my time goal by more than two and a half minutes. The official time posting confirmed it.

I rode the endorphin rush all the way back to Mentor, where I embraced a two-hour post-tri nap, followed by a much-needed shower (hellooooooo, icky lake debris in my tri-suit and inside my running bra) and a celebratory lunch at Melt in Cleveland.

So before I attempt another tri (which I’m hoping to do this spring), I have a lot of work to do. Perhaps the biggest mistake I made was to train for each of the three disciplines separately; even if you’re a strong swimmer, cyclist or runner, doing all three disciplines in succession is what separates a tryathlete from a triathlete. Doing an occasional brick ain’t gonna cut it. I need to work not only on building up my base endurance, but also tackling hills on the bike and on foot. And I absolutely must do some periodic trail running, even if it’s only every other week. Finally, I need to build my swimming endurance, practice sighting more effectively and get in some open-water swims so I can get used to swimming blind. (I’ve already started practicing swimming with my eyes closed when I'm in the pool.) Now let’s all just hope Hammie decides to work with me.

If you’ve ever accidentally gotten magic marker on your skin, you know that it seems to take forever to wash/wear off. The ink marking my race number (193—PRIME!) on my left upper arm faded a lot faster than I wanted it to—it was gone in about three days, not even long enough for it to be visible when I got back to New York. I kept my green Tyvek race bracelet on for a week before cutting it off, punching two holes in it and inserting it in my bibfolio. The matching bike band is still wrapped around my bike’s frame and will remain there until it falls off. The accomplishment of finishing my first triathlon will last even longer.