September 26, 2004-I AM A TRIATHLETE!

On September 26, 2004, I woke up very early to "get to the race at least one hour before your wave is scheduled to start", just like my "bible" had advised me to do. While waiting for my car at the hotel with the sun coming up, someone asked me if this was going to be my first triathlon. ( I wondered how they knew this.) I said yes. They told me that I would never be the same after today. That competing in triathlons was addictive and that I would be doing more triathlons. I really didn't know if that was true or not. But I had my doubts.

When I got to the race site I understood why I looked like a first timer. I did have a "tri-suit" like my "bible" had suggested, so that wasn't it. But my mountain bike stood out like a sore thumb. Everyone had these incredible bikes with strange handlebars and wheels. They also did look very lean, strong and fit. I had entered the Athena division, since I qualified with a weight of 145. (I thought I would be more likely to get a medal in this division.) So even though I was fit, I had a layer of fat hiding all of my muscles. It seemed to me that all of these triathletes had muscles hiding other muscles!

The Swim
Here I didn't follow the "bible's" advice. I was supposed to get to the outside at the start, since I wasn't a strong swimmer. But since I wanted to "place well", I got right behind the front row. When the gun went off, I swam hard right behind the strong swimmers. Things were really going well! Well at least for the first 100 yards. Then I ran out of oxygen. I decided to do the back stroke. Everyone started to pass me. People started kicking and hitting me as they passed. Hmmm...This is a little frightening. I turned over to do the crawl again. But every time I put my face in the water I couldn't breath. I flipped back over and did the back stroke again. This sequence was repeated over and over again. Until, I FINALLY finished the swim! It was the longest 800 meters I have ever swum. And it was REALLY hard. I finished the 800 meter swim with a time of 19:48.

The Bike
The bike was a blast. It was so much fun I couldn't believe it. Up until this point, I had only competed in running races. And this was so much more fun than running. Since I was in the last wave and had had such a poor swim I didn't have a lot of people passing me so I thought I was doing quite well. My mountain bike was going much faster than my usual 12-13 MPH and I was even passing a few poor soles. I finished the 11 miles with a time of 41:54. A whooping 15.75 MPH! ( I had no idea that that was not very fast until later.)

The Run
Now I was doing what I knew how to do. I passed quite a few people on the run and was now sure that I was doing very well in my first triathlon. I finished the 3 mile run in 23:59. Which I thought was pretty good considering that I had had to swim and bike first.

The Results
I couldn't wait for the results. Surely I must have placed in the top five in my division? The Athena division can't be that competitive can it?

• Swim-23rd out of 34
• Bike-21st out of 34
• Run-2nd out of 34
• Overall-10th out of 34

Well...maybe I am not a fast triathlete. But, I AM A TRIATHLETE! ( And that's all that matters.)