oh the play of numbers. here goes. yesterday: 30min trainer, 800m run, 30min trainer, 1200m run, 30min trainer, 1200m run. followed by an onslaught of nachos and 2 margaritas. followed by 4 hours of sleep. which brings me to race morning. drank about half a bottle of gatorade. zero food. 28 relay teams. one asian guy i knew i could beat in the ocean. too many LATC folks to count. 5th heat out. 11 min and change to the first buoy (hmmmm really? then that next buoy must be way the fuck out there, damn that sucks). passed one yellow capper before 2nd buoy. 4 min to the next buoy (holy shit, WTF is going on?). pass three more yellow cappers. realize that if i bust my ass, i might actually make this thing in under 25 min. is that really possible? catch up to a couple orange caps (ok, seriously. either i’m like speed demon on meth today, or this course is way off). stand up and start running at 24:58. make it to the damn mat a friggin’ MILE away, in 2 foot deep sand, uphill both ways, barefoot...i could go on. and only one of those is false, ok maybe 2. mat time is 27:42. got the chip handed off and roger was gone by 28:02. made it into transition and handed off almost 4min ahead of my GOAL TIME for just the swim.
only met one of my teammates twice (roger - bike), had never met the other guy (gerardo - run). doesn’t help much with nerves. plus with the way saturday’s track/trainer workout went, instead of browsing the course map online and mentally preparing, i was sleeping and then drinking. nice. got there by 0545, had no food with me. not necessarily a bad thing. wasn’t hungry at all. arrived early to set up and say hi to everyone, probably not something i’ll make a point of in the future. with the exception of one group, the vibe in the transition area is just weird come race morning, especially today knowing all i had to do was knockout this small swim (hey, if i wasn’t there, i would probably have moved up to the 1.5 mile buoy at the MB swim today). by only having the oly swim ahead of me, i felt like i was back in high school cheating on my science exam, but with only the really cool people (all 6 of us really cool people subsequently got caught btw). it was kind of chilly, but not too bad. got into my suit, talked with my teammates about logistics for a sec. had the national anthem (that chick was impressive) during which i downed my only Gu with some Gatorade. figured neither could hurt at that point. and the wind was starting to pick up so who the hell knew what was waiting for my ass on the other side of the dunes. walk out to the beach with some guys, talking shit the whole way. ‘WHICH buoy do we swim to? that looks really far out there. running this coming back in is gonna SUCK.’ that last statement was me, but i’m sure you already knew that. i’ve figured out that i need to get in the water before the race starts. a friend of mine NEVER gets in the water before the swim. hell, she doesn’t even look at any part of the course beforehand. she doesn’t want to know. that freaks me out. so i go down, get my feet wet and think ‘well, that’s some damn cold water.’ i rationalize it out - hey it’s just as cold as it is back in SM/MB, maybe i just need a minute to get used to it. so i go out a bit, get a couple strides in. no. not happening. there will be no ‘getting used to it’. face literally hurt. i get out and start fiddling with my goggles to get my mind off the water. this older lady walks up and stands next to me. we do the pleasantry smiles and so i say ‘that water is cold as hell!’ her response: ‘it’s been colder.’ just that. monotone, not inflection in her voice, just ‘it’s been colder.’ and with that i was walking back in. the second time in was much better, it must’ve been my mentality because that water didn’t warm up in the 2 min i was out of it. one of the USAT officials came up to a group of us and had the nerve to say the water was 64 degrees. i was the first to correct her, but once i opened my mouth there was a chorus backing me up.
watched the first 4 heats go off. talked to my run leg guy. found the asian dude (i soooo wanted to do the “i’m watching you” hand gestures off Meet the Parents, but i resisted) and kept him in my sights. i was amazingly calm looking back on it. the gun went off and we ran. the kelp was absolutely ridiculous. never had any waves worth diving for, bummed me out. but in that kelp, it was definitely a good thing. it was a bit of a struggle to the first sprint buoy, purely jockeying for position. i never got kicked, but i hate following bubbles. have to have my own path, probably not a good thing. was surprised when i started seeing people flipping to backstroke so soon. i hit the first buoy fast, i can’t say faster than i expected because the course was different than what i had glanced at online. that threw me off. online it was a triangle, but this was more of a rectangle. so then i started the numbers game above trying to figure out what i was going to be able to pull out. i had no problems with bilateral breathing, every third really helps me keep everything in a nice pattern. only got one mouthful of water. at one point i even thought of yelling out ‘taxi’ to the boats at the 2 buoys, but then i worried they’d think i needed rescue, or worse, wouldn’t laugh. they didn’t look like very happy guys. so i kept to myself. i recently read a woman during her IM race was able to have a mental playlist and she’d just go through song after song. turns out, that must take practice because i couldn’t think of a single song. i think i was having to sight too much. maybe once the run or bike start i’ll be able to do that.
anyway, i was stoked when i caught up with not only the next wave, but the wave in front of them. that really excited me - for a minute, until i realized that i probably was only passing the super slow people from those waves. it’s like stealing another kid’s halloween candy only to find black licorice and almond joys inside. boo. i tried to kick it into high gear for the last 400 or so, don’t know how much faster i really ended up going. was thrilled when i stood up and hit my watch. immediately started running. i made it to just before the top of the hill when the 4 letter words started tumbling off my tongue. that damn sand was killer. ran once i hit pavement. got to transition, took off my chip along with a chunk of kelp and slapped it on roger. he was gone. talked briefly with gerardo about my times, what time roger got off. i disrobed and started my photography duties.
the rest of the day went well, got to see lots of friends, made new ones. i honestly thought we had no chance in hell of even placing in the top 5. while we were waiting for roger to return from the bike, the asian dude and i (whom i did indeed whoop) started counting the racked relay bikes. we already counted 4, and he kept telling me about his super fast teammate. gerardo came back in and then went right back out, i just knew roger was going to come in only to find gerardo out warming up for the 5th time.
when they first posted the results, i saw we placed 2nd. i told the other 2 guys, so excited. then gerardo noticed the first place team had an impossibly fast bike leg. turns out their bike leg (the asian dude’s ‘superfast’ teammate...ha-ha-ha) was short an entire loop, so they were disqualified. first place went to us. all three of us were stupid-happy about it. and by the time they got around to announcing relay winners, we not only were the only team left to even accept anything, but there were only maybe 5 other people left to see us accept anything. ah well. what can ya do?
overall, great race. great experience. great introduction to the sport. sucked because everyone was really fast at the swim = mismarked course. or shift of tide. either way, wasn’t a true time for that distance. bummer. but, first outing in Tri-Land, and placed first. gerardo has been doing this for years and it’s his first time placing first. that says tons.
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