Dairy Queen kicked my Ass

Triathlon #2 in the bag!

"How did it go?", you ask. Let me see . . .

The swim? Well, there was that really great moment right before the swim start when I had to squint in order to be able to barely make out the buoys that I was required to swim around. I had to squint you see because the freaking things were TOO FAR AWAY from the shore for human eyes to see.

And, there was that first five minutes of the swim when all that I was aware of was churning water, and bodies and body parts everywhere, and that I was pretty sure that I was going to drown. The truth is that the swim SERIOUSLY SUCKED. There were people everywhere. However, I worked really hard to stay calm, didn't let myself completely freak out, and I finished. Yeah me!

The bike? Well, that's actually my strongest part of the tri. Though there was that whole "S#$%, I can't get my right foot unclipped!!" fiasco that left me standing in front of the timing mat at T2, looking like an idiot, for oh about 10 minutes. Well, okay it felt like 10 minutes.

The run? Well, it did kinda bite that my feet were numb for the first half of the run. And that I couldn't initially figure out what the problem was. All I knew was that something was off. Finally it hit me, "Hey, I can't feel my feet!"

And it was kinda embarrasing when I realized that the zipper on my tri suit, the front of the suit, had come unzipped. ALL THE WAY TO MY WAIST. Now before you start thinking "Tri Girls Gone Wild," there is a built in bra in the thing, so the show remained PG. But still, jeez, you'd think somebody could have said something. Aren't there some clothing courtesy rules among triathletes?

And then there was that moment about half way through the run when I started thinking, "You know, there's something about me that's different than all the other runners. Hmm, what could it be?" Well, what it was was that I forgot to put my race belt on and so I had no number. This lead me to be all freaked out for the rest of the run thinking that I was going to be disqualified.

Race results? Well, I had some fun when the initial results were posted and I was NOT ON IT! Come on! I did alot of work here people! I NEED to see my name in print. I then had to wait five minutes for Results Posting Guy to do posting guy stuff before he would talk to me. And my head almost exploded when I gave Results Posting Guy my bib number and he said "We don't have anybody logged in with that chip number." Fortunately, Results Posting Guy was very nice and helpful and managed to calm me down. We figured out that the unknown racer who had raced with the unassigned chip number of 112 was, in fact, me. This actually was a great lesson. It didn't occur to me before this race to check my chip number against my bib number. Yes, probably tri lesson 101 but I've never claimed to be a rocket scientist.

And, there was that cool 20 seconds when I got to go up on the podium and got a plaque for winning my age group. Hey, never ask a woman of a certain age her age. The point is NOT the actual numerical grouping that one is in. The point is that one showed up in order to get grouped.

And then I went to Dairy Queen.

Now you should understand that I operate on the principle that I should be rewarded for even marginal accomplishments. So, in my mind finishing tri #2, with or without a plaque, was definitely grounds for ice creamy goodness. However, yesterday my mind apparently forgot to consult with my gut.

Within 90 minutes of me drinking my milkshake, everything I had eaten for the past two days had run through me. I spent the next four hours fighting abdominal cramping, nausea, and really, really, really bad gas. Yes, gross x 10.

Dairy Queen managed to do what the lake, the hills, the bike, and the run could not do. Dairy Queen kicked my ass.

There's how many people in my wave?!

Here's the Good and Bad in my world:

Good:
I'm signed up to do my second tri this Sunday.

Good:
I had my first wetsuit swim last Saturday.

Good:

Wetsuits ROCK! Your backend stays up, up, up. I had to keep reminding myself to kick.

Bad:
I just read on the race website that each swim wave will consist of TWO HUNDRED AND FIFY (250) people!

Bad:
I am TERRIFIED of the water. It took me well over a year to get enough self control to not completely FREAK OUT when I swallowed water while swimming . . . in the pool . . . that is four and one half feet (yes, 4 1/2) deep. If I had a dollar for every person who said "Freaking A, calm down! You know that you can stand up!" I would be able to buy and sell Bill Gates several times over.

Intellectually, I know that I can stand up in 4 1/2 feet of water; I'm not a moron and I am of average height for an American female. But when I'm swimming, especially when I first started, there was no room for logic in the pool. The entire time I was in the pool I was engaged in an epic struggle between life and death. All of my reactions were based purely on the age old fight or flight reflexes.

Now, in my defense, I have gotten much, much better. At least in the pool. However, the open water brings back all of those old fears, as well as some new and improved ones. At my first race two weeks ago, my first "solo" open water swim, I had a panic attack prior to the swim start. I just kept thinking "I can't do this; there is NO WAY that I can do this, I CAN NOT DO THIS." The truth is that I almost got out of the water right then and there and quit. Three things stopped me: 1) I knew that I would hate myself for just giving up; 2) it would have been too humiliating because I knew too many people there (competitors and spectators); and 3) there were too many rocks between where I was standing and the shore. Hey, I'm a big wuss and it had actually been physically painful to walk over all those dumb rocks to get to where I was standing so there was no attraction to having to walk back over them again.

Happily, I went for it. Following advice, I counted to 10 to let the group, consisting of maybe 75 women, go. And then I started swimming. At first, I focused on counting my strokes, one, two . . . twelve and sight, in order to give me something to think about other than drowning. Then a funny thing happened. I started passing people. Well, to be accurate, first I started running into them. But, props to me, I didn't panic. I just kept swimming wide to the left, and kept counting my strokes and kept focusing on not out swimming my breath. And, come on people, let's be honest. Once you start passing people, IT. IS. ON!

Anyway, I was and am still pretty proud of that effort. But now, 250 people in my wave?!! I mean, how far back and left can I go?

* Any similarities between the format of this post and the "The Good, the Bad, & The Ugly" format made ridiculously popular by the celebrity blogger known as Bolder is the sincerest form of flattery.

Moments of Truth

For a while now, I've been the person in all of my social circles; work, friends, family etc., who is the workout queen. What I've found is that in reality most people, or at least most of the people in my orbit, don't work out at all. Those who do work out, well, they are the three times a week gym goers. So, for quite a while now, I've been walking around all cocky thinking (to myself of course) "That's right, I'm THE (wo)MAN. I swim, bike and run. I do two activities in one day. I spend hours at the gym every day. I so rock!!" But then I started reading the blogs. And about the training hours of the bloggers.

Now, at first, my highly developed senses of denial and avoidance kicked in, and I consoled myself with the idea that these people were training for Ironman. I mean, of course I'm not training like Ironmen. After all, I'm only recently Sprint (wo)Man!.

But then I noticed that a workout total of a non pending Ironman. Her total: 17.5 hours last week. And so I addedup my hours for the past week (to the best of my recollection). My total: 10.5 hours.

17.5 hours.

10.5 hours.

This resulted in an Oh My God! moment. Initially, it was "Oh My God, I am a total wimp."

However, as with most Oh My God! moments, in the end there turned out to be an upside and a downside. The downside was that I got kinda bummed out and went on a junk food binge (dinner = 6 mini chocolate cupcakes with frosting + 2 slices lemon loaf cake + milk).

The upside was that I realized that I could use some help in figuring out how to train and how much to train, and what to train. And so, after my self induced hyperglycemic coma wore off, I started looking into different options; maybe a coach, maybe training plans from the internet, maybe something else. I haven't decided yet on which one I'm going with but it feels like I've started asking the right questions.

Speaking of questions, anyone know how many hours of training I have to do to make up for dinner? 17.5?!!

Good Coaching

So, FB, our triathlon class coach, is giving us the route for our run the other night. "Take Songbird Street to Rich Dead Guy Street to Pink Bird Street and then retrace back." (Names of streets have been changed to protect the innocent . . . okay, actually it's to protect me because I live in a tourist town and I don't want to get sued. It's CYA all the way.) And so, off we go.

As I'm approaching Mohave Lodging Road, I see FB's pickup on the side of the road. Now FB normally drives to the halfway point of our runs and brings beverages for us if we want/need them. However, I know that Mohave Lodging Road is nowhere near the half way point, so I'm surprised to see him. "Water?" FB asks. "No, I'm good," I reply. He nods and then, as I'm running off, as if it's an after thought, he nonchalantly says, "Hey why don't you take a right on Mohave Lodging Road. It just occured to me that right up there (our original route) is where a lot of people get shot." Yes, he did say SHOT.

A coach who is diligent in directing his athletes away from gun play. My kind of guy.

Ladies and Gentleman, introducing Sprint (wo) Man!

On Sunday, September 24, 2006, I completed my first sprint triathlon. This day has been two years in the making.

Now you might be thinking, "hey, I bet there's a great story here. Honey, gather the kids! Wow, two years to get to the place where this woman can swim 750 meters, bike 12 miles and run a 5K. This must be someone who has overcome serious obstacles, someone who has an inspiring story to tell."

And the answer is (drum roll please): umm, not so much. Though I could say that I am paralyzed . . . ("guys, a paralyzed triathlete!") . . . ahh, by my fear of the water.

Yes, I know, believe me I know, it's quite a letdown. I guess another way one could say it is that I am a big wussy scaredy cat crybaby. Let's see, after consideration Alex, I'll go with water paralysis for $100.00.

I first got interested in triathlon two years ago through people at the gym where I work out. I was taking cardio kickboxing classes and someone that I met in that class encouraged me to try the bootcamp class. And Bootcamp is where I met FB, who remains the most sarcastic, sadistic, hilarious instructor/coach/personal trainer that I have ever met.

Besides bootcamp, FB ran the triathlon class. And he was always recruiting. When it came my turn, I pointed out to FB that I could NOT swim AT ALL. Yes, despite the fact that I grew up in Minnesota, the land of 10,000+ vile and evil bodies of water commonly referred to as "lakes," and despite the fact that in MN fishing is considered a "sport", and despite the fact that everybody in MN (and their brother too) have weekend cabins on the lake where they go to water ski and do water activities, I had never learned to swim (hello, my mother is from Ecuador. It's a well known fact that Ecuadorians cannot swim. Hey, that's my story and I'm sticking to it). FB being a diabolical genius said something to the effect of "oh, that's okay, just come and do the bike and run portion and see how it goes."

And so with that my triathlon story and journey began. And now having been inspired by the stories and journeys I've found in blogs, I'm sharing mine.