Melissa i
Strong

My first triathlon went well.  It was not as good as I had hoped and not as bad as it could have been.  I finished in 1 hour and 47 minutes, 5th for my age group.  I was hoping for anywhere from 1 hour and 30 minutes to 1 hour and 50, so I cannot complain, but here is the story of what did go wrong.

 

I guess I will start at the beginning—how I felt going into the race.  Unfortunately, I had a stomach bug this weekend that did not clear up for the race—not optimal, but  I just chose not to focus on feeling sick.  Besides the stomach bug, I felt prepared.  I could do the ½ mile swim in 18 minutes (in the pool), the bike ride of 12-13 miles in 45 minutes, and before I hurt my Achilles, the run was 7 minutes mile. However, I had not been able to run outside for two months before the event due to the fact that I hurt my Achilles while practicing the bike-to-run transition.   I still had been able to hit the elliptical, saving my Achilles but doing a much slower 9-10 minute mile.  All of these times were pretty casual—trying but not killing myself.  I put the three events together several times.

 

How did my times compare to the day of the race? Similar on the bike and run--I did the bike in 46:36 (which is a little disappointing, but after the swimming trauma, I took it easy, feeling like I was already out of the race) and an 8.7-minute mile—it was the swim where everything went drastically wrong—27:33 minutes.

 

I felt very confident swimming in open water.  I was raised on the ocean and feel like I am a strong swimmer.  But I was unprepared to get pummeled with so many people entering the water at once.  At first, I did o.k.  I was focusing on my breathing, passing a few people, but I got bumped around.  Then, in the thick of the other swimmers, I took a kick to the face, and my goggles got hit and took on water.  I stopped and quickly cleared the muddy water out of my goggles but my contact lenses had already been affected and were dislodged.  I have an astigmatism and am -8.00 in one eye and -7.50 in the other—so basically, I can only see shapes and colors.  Treading water in the middle of frenzied swimmers, I tried to blink my contacts back into place. I swallowed a lot of disgusting muddy water and air.  I was not psyched at this point, and unable to see and inhale water. I motioned to the rescue kayakers, who are supposed to provide assistance to those in need.  Not being able to see, I don't really know what happened, but seeing colors, it looked like they were helping out another swimmer and not coming to my aid (which was alarming).  My contacts eventually settled back into place, and I tried to continue on with the freestyle stroke, but the lake water and air were high in my chest/throat and were restricting my breathing.  So I did what I tell everyone to do in the water if they are in trouble: roll over and get on your back.   I continued the race doing the backstroke—I sighted the moon on my left and kept the sun on my right, which gave me some direction.  Still, I had to flip around on occasion to check if I was staying on course, but at least I was moving.

 

After that, everything else was a breeze and felt good. However, I already felt a bit disappointed feeling that the swimming debacle had already taken me out of the race I was hoping for.  My transitions were quick and easy.  I was able to pass people on the bike and run.  It was just the disastrous swim that slowed me down big time and left me slightly less committed on the bike.

 

In the end, I am happy the kayaker did not come to my rescue—I was able to get through a tough situation, continue on, and not panic.  The stomach bug and the amount of disgusting lake water I swallowed did not help my situation, creating a very upset stomach as I continued the race.  But I was able to overcome this by simply pushing through.  Will I do it again?  I would like to get a better time since I know I can and was not even tired at the end.  It would be nice to try the race without a stomach virus, without a disastrous swim and with an Achilles that is not hurting.  But I am not sure if this is possible.  There is always something out of our control—our bodies—feeling perfect on race day is not always possible.  Can I have a more enjoyable swim with the nature of the race? I am not sure, but that will be a concern.

Odds are this will probably not be my last triathlon.  It was nice switching things up and not just focusing on climbing and challenging myself outside of my comfort zone, but for now, thankfully, it is back to the boulders and September!!