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…