Race report, part 1 (Sprint distance triathlon)

By popular request, here is the beginning of the race report. I don’t think it is all that enthralling, sorry. I’ve had a hard time finding a free minute to write so it is just the start. More later, if little princess takes a snooze.

Part 1:

First of all, it was hard. Harder than I expected, and I was expecting it to be tough. I got up at 4:00 am (race start was 7:00 am), did all the usual race-day morning prep including hot shower (illogical since I was headed straight for the lake, but oh-so-necessary to open my eyes at that miserable hour), pot of coffee, ½ piece of toast w/pb, ½ a banana, and checking my bag 15 times over to be sure I had everything. I got on the road right on time, 5:15, for the 45 minute drive to the race start. The only other cars I saw going in the same direction at that hour were also carrying bikes so I was reassured that mapquest had gotten me on the right road. Even after my obsessive bag-checking routine at home I kept startling myself as I drove down the freeway, sure that I must have forgotten something. Luckily, this time it all ended up being there, and then some.

It was cloudy and 50+ degrees but not raining, thankfully. The first thing I did was find the transition area and get my bike in the rack, as close to the center walkway as possible; then, straight to the porta-potty line, otherwise known as the hang-out-and-socialize zone. The line was a good 25 people long already at 6:15 am and I had someone to talk to from the time I hit the line until I got to the stall. I was feeling uncharacteristically like a social butterfly, jumpy, wired, floating on coffee, fear, and excitement. Suddenly, I remembered that the transition area was set to close at 6:45 and I hadn’t even picked up my race number. About all I had done in more than 20 minutes was talk. So I scurried around, checked-in and picked up my packet, got body marked with my bib number on my shoulder and my wave number on my calf (maybe for life from the looks of it), and got the transition area set up.

The first event is the swim, so I began the 10 minute process of trying to get the wetsuit on. It is an ordeal, sort of like trying to fit a balloon into a straw, and would have been embarrassing except that we were all doing the same thing. I had help zippering and velcro-ing everying into place and then, looking and feeling like a chorizo and doubting that I’d ever get out of that thing – let alone fast – I headed to the shore.

They started us in waves, groups of 40-50 people 3-5 minutes apart. I was in wave 12 so had 45 minutes to shiver on the shoreline. It had started to sprinkle but the wind was light so the lake wasn’t too choppy. I was shaking so badly from the cold and fear that near-strangers were hugging me to warm me up. (It was sort of nice. I may have to put this to future use. ) I had many friends doing this race, so at least I had lots of company to share the freezing misery as we waited for our waves. When I observed that I wished I had signed up for the novice category (first-timers only, in wave 3) to avoid the wait, one of the veterans said, “Don’t worry. You can be a novice next year.” Ha, so much handy advice. When there were only women left (elites, relays, novices, and men went first – what kind of thinking goes into that system?), I got in the water to “get used to it.” It was incredibly, miserably cold, painful even in a wetsuit. I swam around (OK, really, I did about 3 strokes and called it a warm-up) and calmed down enormously, so that when it was finally time to cross the timing mat and line up the shaking had disappeared. I felt calm, and fairly confident that I’d be just fine. As it turned out, I was not fine, by any stretch.

But gotta run now! Kids are waiting. More later.