lazy, lazy, lazy

I have become a lazy sloth since my triathlon, always planning to exercise, but rarely getting around to it.  It didn’t help that my iPod stopped working and I refuse to run, walk or bike without it.  (I know, I know!  It’s dangerous to bike with an iPod – but I WONT bike without it and I only use one ear bud.  I put it in my right ear, the one away from traffic.)  I’m convinced that I have another ear infection, so I won’t swim, and we have not gotten the training schedule for the fall triathlon season, so technically I am not in training and don’t have to exercise.  

Here We Go Again

If you had asked me at run mile four of the Knoxville (my first triathlon) if I would ever do this again I would have said "HELL NO!", but barely a week later here I am, signed up to do another one.

Why? You ask. For several reasons:

• I loved the training provided by TNT
• I loved doing training on my own. I know myself. If I wasn't signed up for another event I would just stop working out the day after my last event was over.
• I love the friends that I made as part of the TEAM
• I have become a mentor, to help guide new TEAMmates through their first TNT adventure
• There is still no cure for blood cancers

Please make a donation in support of my efforts with Team In Training and help advance the research for cures.

The Run

The MOMENT I got off of my bicycle I knew that I was in trouble.  My legs were CRAMPED, so cramped and so tight.  This has happened to me in the past (but never nearly this bad).  I was told that cramping is often due to a lack of hydration and/or critical nutrients.  Well, I did my best to prepare for this.  I had, on the bike, a Camel Back hydration system and two water bottles all filled with water PLUS tablets containing electrolytes etc. These tablets are made for endurance athletes and should have done the trick.  I drank it all.  I also had one or two GUs and some Power Bar gummies.  Other athletes will know what I mean by GUs and gummies.  If you don’t, just take my word for it, it’s what you are supposed to have – concentrated nutrition. 

Well, it didn’t do the job.  My legs HURT.  I took off my bike shoes and put the running shoes on.  Then I attempted to run.  I saw a TEAMmate just a few yards away from me and wanted to catch up with her.  I was very optimistic.  There was NO WAY I could run.  Maybe I just had to walk the kinks out.  I figured that I could walk the kinks out and then start running.  I HAD EXCRUCIATING PAIN WITH EACH AND EVERY STEP.  Each step was a brand new torture, but I didn’t consider stopping.  I did, however, consider crawling.  My only consolation was that my TEAMmate was walking in front of me not gaining any headway.  It felt good to know that wasn’t the only one walking.  

When I got to the first aid station I asked the volunteers how far I had gone.  They said a mile.  You would think that it would have felt like more than a mile to me, but for some reason it felt like less.  That gave me great hope.  If I could do this for one mile I could do it for six point two.  It wouldn't be fun, but I could do it.  At the station I had half a banana, Gatorade, a salt tablet and some bags of water.  You read me right.  They had these cool bags of water, about the size and shape of a soda can.  You just bite the corner of them and squeeze the water into your mouth, or over your head.  The cool part about them is that you can take them with you, unlike a paper cup of water.  Well nourished and hydrated, I tried running again, but I was just kidding myself. 

Soon after that we got off the road and onto a greenbelt trail.  I loved it.  It went through a park with fields, streams, and wild flowers.  What a pretty course!  The next aid station was manned by Team In Training.  I was so happy to see the purple.  I had some similar food and nutrition and picked up a purple grass skirt from a volunteer at the booth (I can only assume the relative of a TNT participant).  I wore the skirt and continued on my way. 

Another aid station, this one with an actual bathroom!  (a luxury for endurance athletes) It had running water, toilet paper and everything.  (It takes so little to please me.)  I just had to be careful of my purple skirt while in there.  Don’t worry.  I was.  More salt, more Gatorade and more water and I continued on my way. 

When we hit the three mile mark (or so) we had to turn around and go back the way that we came.  At that point I began to see some of my TEAMmates that were doing the Half Ironman.  We cheered each other on, they commented on my skirt, but we never stopped.  I was walking and they were running.  It was then that I noticed that my legs didn’t hurt as much anymore.  I attempted to run and nothing terrible happened.  I ran for a little bit but then decided that it was hot, I was tired, and my time was shot anyway so I should just walk and enjoy the day.

When I passed the TNT booth I returned my purple skirt, chatted a little with the volunteers and refueled.  Afterwards I felt plain and boring without my purple skirt so I picked a flower, put it in my hair, and continued on my way.   You should have seen the look of defeat of my coach when he asked me where I got the flower and I told him that I picked it.  I guess that he trained me to be a triathlete, but didn’t train me to be competitive. 

At this point my toes were beginning to hurt, not cramping, but blistering from rubbing the against my socks.  I swear I could feel every fiber in the weave of my socks.  This was not fun.  Trust me!  I’ve tried about six different brands of socks during my training and ended up throwing the others out.  These were the only ones that didn’t bunch up on me.  Next time I will coat my toes with Vaseline to avoid the friction. 

If the first mile of the run was short the last one was excruciatingly long.  I passed many, many, many volunteers handing out water and directing traffic.  I would like to thank them.  They cheered me on as if I was the only reason they were there that day.  I was hot and tired and my toes really burned.  Their cheerful attitude was a real pick-me up at that time.  That, and the promise of beer, kept me going.  We passed the transition area and had about a half (though some people said it was a full) mile to the finish line. 

On this stretch I passed other athletes, with their medal and finishers shirt, going in the opposite direction.  They had finished the race and were walking back to pick up their bikes.  They cheered me on as well.  Many of them told me to “finish strong” not knowing that I was not walking out of sheer exhaustion, but that I had been walking the entire way.  I passed my coach, went up to the World’s Fair Park, across the street and into the runway. (Is that what they call that final stretch of a race?) past the TNT booth, there’s Rich cheering me on, and to the finish line.  I heard my name and home town announced over the loud speakers just as crossed.  I stopped, posed for the camera and went to receive my medal!

The guy handing out the medals heard that I was from Northport, NY and had a dozen questions for me.  Was Northport on Long Island?  Do I know where Kew Gardens is?  Am I far from Valley Stream?  I just wanted to grab the medal and knock him down, but I got it eventually. 

I am finished.  Strange I don’t feel any different. 

Just minutes later I was congratulated by a couple of my TEAMmates.  They wanted to know how I felt.  I wanted to know where the beer was.  THERE WAS NO BEER!  I want my money back.

The Bike

T1 (also known as Transition 1)

When I got out of the water my legs hurt.  HURT.  Like the worst shin splints that I ever had, but I don’t think that they were shin splints, more like tight muscles or cramps.  They HURT!  The actual transition area was ¼ (though I seem to distinctly remember somebody saying ½) mile from the dock.  I waddled the whole way.  Other people ran. 

Taking off my swim gear and mounting the bike was relatively uneventful.  I was just really worried that my legs wouldn’t feel better for the bike ride and the run.  How on earth could I complete the triathlon when my legs feel this way?

Well, just a couple of minutes into the run my legs felt fine, great.  I felt great.  I was really looking forward to the ride.  I wasn’t nearly as intimidated by the mountains as before.  I guess because I knew that I wouldn’t be kicked out of the race if I didn’t climb them quickly, and also there was something about seeing them in real life that made them look just beautiful, not scary at all. 

We started the race in the city and I have to give credit to the Rev 3 race coordinators.  Until we got to the countryside they had every road closed, we even rode on a major highway with no other traffic.  Throughout the entire route there was a police vehicle and police officer at every corner. 

Here’s a shout out to the police officers.  They were stuck on a street corner on a very hot day looking at bicyclists pass them one after the other all daylong.  I was among the last of them.  You would think that they would have had it by then but they cheered me on with claps and words of encouragement the entire time.  I have no way of telling them, but it meant a lot to me. 

The only bad part of the bike portion was just before we left the city.  The road narrowed and steeply dipped beneath a railroad trestle.  It was not well paved and was VERY bumpy.  I not only had to navigate the large bumps, at a fast speed, on a narrow decline, but I also had to navigate around many rolling water bottles on that small strip of road.  I presume that the bottles were shaken out of their cages when the bicycles that they belonged to hit the bumps.   The worst hill was that same stretch on the way back to the city: short but steep. 

Once we got out of the city the course was BEAUTIFUL. We rode up and down the hills of the Smokey Mountains, passing farms, fields, flowers and trees.   I could smell honeysuckle the whole time.  I kept reminding myself to ignore the pain and just enjoy the scenery. I am still not a big fan of hills, but this ride made biking hills worth wile. 

At one point I was slowly ascending a steep hill when I noticed a police motorcycle behind me.  It was going pretty slowly for a motorcycle.  Then I noticed another.  They soon overtook me and it was clear that they were escorting a cyclist.  This was at a point in the race where the Olympic Distance course and the Half Ironman Distance course were merged together, the Half Ironman racers having gone much further than me at this point (duh!).  Well, the cyclist that they were escorting, I can only imagine to be the current leader, Cheered me on.  Imagine that.  Soon other cyclists from the longer race began to pass me in numbers.  They cheered me on too.  I wish that I could thank them. I seemed to get a little push each time.  I wish that I could thank them too. 

Into the city, off of the bike and into T2.

The Swim

I know.  I know.  I know.  I should have written about this a week ago.  So sorry!  I think that I’ll break up the telling of my triathlon adventure into three parts.  You guessed it:  the swim, the bike and the run.  Let me start with the swim.

Although it covers my entire body it hides nothing.  A wetsuit is not a friend of a Slow, Fat Triathlete

I cannot tell the story about my triathlon swim without going back a few weeks to the first time I donned a wetsuit.  When my wetsuit arrived I was well warned:  Artie, a guy on my team, told me that it is quite common for people, when donning a wetsuit for the first time, to feel that they can not expand their lungs.  Crissy elaborated by telling me that she found breathing in her wetsuit so constricting that, after putting it on for the first, time she climbed on top of her swim coach almost drowning her.  She never put one on again.

I tried on the suit right away, and I thought that it fit.  How could I possibly put anything smaller on my body?  It took me 20 minutes of unimaginable contortions just to get this thing on (I thank God every day that nobody was filming that.)  but, when I got into the pool the thing filled up with water.  There is supposed to be a small layer of water between the suit and my body, but not like this.  Water rushed in and out of my sleeve with every stroke.  It was like lifting an extra ten pounds each time I raised my arm.  My swim coach told me to get a smaller one.  I could breathe in the thing just fine and I quickly forgot all of the warnings previously given to me.  

The smaller suit arrived just as I was shipping my bike down to Knoxville.  I managed to get it on my body, just to make sure that I could, but I didn’t zip it.  I just stuck it in the big box with the bike and didn’t see it again until I was in Tennessee.   

The day of the tri our coach had us put  on our suit when we got to the dock, but he told us to not zip it until just before we are supposed to get in the water.  The weather was warm and he didn’t want us to overheat.  I put it on, zipped it moments before I got in the water, and was ready to start my very first ever triathlon. 

When our wave (group of people starting the race at that time) got in the water we swam out to a buoy to wait for the starting gun (or horn.  I can’t remember).  I was so calm in the water, not overly excited as I was told I would be.  When the horn blew (or gun shot).  I remember thinking “I am in my first triathlon.  I must remember this moment”, but I didn’t feel worried or scared.  That was until I started swimming.

Right away I felt like I couldn’t breathe.  (At least I knew that the suit fit.)  I began to panic and gasp for air at every stroke.  I forgot all that I was taught and let my swim form go to the dogs.  I went on my back a couple of times just to clam down.  I considered unzipping my suit, peeling out of it and letting it float away.  I would put up with freezing water over not breathing any time.  I was about two-thirds of the way done with the swim course before I settled my self down enough to swim like a proper triathlete, by then my swim time was shot.  I know that I said that I wasn’t going for time that I just wanted to finish, but I was still hoping for something good, or even acceptable. 

I must say one more thing about the swim.  Once I was calm enough to swim with some production they kept moving the finish line.  I looked up at one point and saw that the dock was about 300 meters away.  I swam for a few minutes and it was STILL 300 meters away, a few more minutes and it was STILL 300 meters away.  How did they do that?  And why would the race coordinators go to such lengths just to trick me?  Eventually they stopped moving it I made it.  The volunteers helped pull me out of the water and onto the dock and the swim portion was over.    Let the first transition begin…

OH! Please let the race begin

OK, before I talk about the triathlon I need to talk about the time leading up to the tri.

I spent a lot of time with the TEAM before the trip, training, socializing and of course, traveling.  Our group to Knoxville consisted seven triathletes, a coordinator and a coach.  I was the only one on out trip that had not done a tri before.  I became everybody’s project.  I was bombarded with information and advice, much of which I had heard hundreds of times before, some of which was way above my fitness level and some of which was conflicting.  It was like the war of the triathlon advice.  Once the coach would leave the room somebody would rush over to me and tell me to ignore a certain piece of counsel (which I probably tuned out anyway) and to not do the coach’s way but to do it this other way instead.  This went on for days.  I wanted to pull my hair out.  Even my roommate, Kathy, who is the sweetest person in the world, was driving me crazy.  She not only gave me constant advice, but she mothered me as well.  I couldn’t even make a joke without her giving me encouragement and confirmation that I worked hard for this and I will do just fine.  We talked about nothing else.  I couldn’t come up for air.  I was happy to start the race just to stop the bombardment.  

I know...I know...

I know that I am supposed to be writing about the triathlon.  Wouldn’t it be terrible if I spent all of this time and energy writing about the events leading up to the big day and then just stopped? All four of my followers would be so disappointed.  (Yet, each and everyone of them already know my results).  It is just so overwhelming and I have so much to say.  I WILL write all I can.  I just need to find the time and the mental organization to get my thoughts together and all typed out.  Hopefully, later today!

Not so scared as before

Well, we flew down to Knoxville yesterday and spent the last two days preparing for the big day tomorrow.  We reassembled our bicycles, picked up our race packets and swag, checked out the transition area and had a practice swim today.  The BEST part of the day was when I had the chance to talk to the race coordinator.  I, fighting back tears, flat out asked him if they would kick me off of the course if I didn't make the cut off times.  He said that they wouldn't.  I asked him if I would still get a medal if I missed the cut off times.  He told me that if I finished that he would give me the medal himself.  I feel like a big weight has been lifted off of my shoulders! I wish that I could post more details about my day, but I am off to the TNT inspiration dinner.  Wish me luck tomorrow!

T-3

T minus three days until my first triathlon and I’m not sure how I feel about it, unprepared? Scared? Excited?   I sent my bike to Knoxville last week and packed my bags this morning.  I guess the event is really here (well, almost).  It doesn’t feel like it.