Tri-ing something new

One day late last summer, I came home from work to find my wife watching TV coverage of a women's triathlon.  I sat down and started watching it with her.  As we watched it, I could see the wheels turning in her head.  I said to her, "You're thinking you could do that aren't you?"  Well that's exactly what she was thinking.  Soon after that day, she had set herself a goal of completing the Danskin Women's Triathlon in Seattle this summer.  She also said she'd like to do the Chelanman Try-a-tri, which is about a month prior to Danskin, as an introduction to the sport.  Well, I'd always thought I could do a triathlon, but thinking about it and doing it are two different things.  So, being a supportive husband, I said I'd do the Chelanman Try-a-tri with her.  I now had ten months or so to get over my dislike of running and my even stronger dislike of and discomfort with swimming.

Throughout the fall, I worked on my running to be prepared to comfortably complete the 5k distance required for the Try-a-tri.  I started working on the running so early because I knew the big challenge for the spring and early summer was going to be turning my non-swimmer self into someone who could survive the 1/4 mile swim required for the event.  I was going to have to do this despite being a 2-hour drive from the closest swimming pool until June when our local outdoor pool would open.

The running training through the fall and winter went well and I even began to enjoy it for the short distance required.  I even competed in a 5k in December and had a really enjoyable time.  I started working on the swim in late April with once a week trips to the nearest pool (100 miles away).  As expected, I was not very secure or strong in the water when I started, but gradually I was able over the weeks to increase the distance of my swim workouts and plan for a combination of backstroke and freestyle to get me through race day.  Eventually, the local pool opened and I increased my workouts to twice a week.  Outdoors I discovered that I have real difficulty swimming straight on my back.  I tend to wander a bit.  My plan for race day was going to have to involve more freestyle or I might end up way off course.

A couple weeks before the tri, my rental wetsuit arrived, and I headed for the local lake.  I knew that it would be a big help buoancy wise, but was really surprised at what a difference it really made.  I now felt really confident that the swim was not going to be that big a deal.  A few days before the race, I had a chance to swim the race course in Lake Chelan.  The water was definitely rougher with frequent boat wakes, but still not all that bad.  I looked forward to race day with great optimism.

Race day arrived with a strong westerly breeze and swim conditions that were described by experienced competitors as "choppy".  Most rookies were using terms like "oceanic".  The wind had piled up a steady series of 2 to 3 foot waves.  I got in the water early and tried to acclimatize and figure out what strokes and methods in my limited skill set were going to help me through this.  After being in it a bit, it really didn't seem all that bad.  Soon the start was upon me.  My wave had maybe 50 people in it and I lined up at the back and waited for the traffic to clear a bit before starting out.  The first 50 yards or so were straight into the teeth of the waves and then the course took a 90 degree turn to the right and began parallelling the waves.  Although I had waited before starting, I was soon stuck in traffic with many other struggling swimmers.  As we cleared the first turn, the conditions became very challenging.  My wife and I talked about it afterwards and decided it was what we think being shipwrecked must be like.  You couldn't really make much forward progress.  It was kind of just treading water with a little forward motion while periodically being dunked.  I had hoped to make the whole swim distance non-stop, but soon found the conditions and lack of forward progress very tiring.  I "rested" a couple of times hanging onto the course marshal kayaks.  Even while hanging onto them however, it was very physical and hard to recover.

Eventually, I reached the second 90 degree right turn on the course and began to swim with a following sea.  Here, I could swim a bit on my back and make pretty good progress.  The challenge for this part of the course is that it was straight into the morning sun and was very hard with the rough water to spot the buoy line that we were following.  Finally, I had passed the last of the bouys and could head for the beach.  I staggered out of the water and made my way into the transition area towards where my bike was racked.  I glanced at my watch and was surprised to see I had only been in the water less than 15 minutes.  That was  the longest 15 minutes of my life!

Heading into this race, I obviously had plenty of confidence in my bike leg.  I brought my TT bike, but left the fancy wheels at home.  The Try-a-tri is designed for newcomers to the sport and is not really a competitve event.  Everyone is timed and gets a full set of splits, but there are no awards.  The sprint event also taking place the same day used the same bike and run legs but started with a 1/2 mile swim.  I wanted to be serious enough about my bike and run that I could compare my times with the sprint competitors to see if I should keep doing tris if I enjoyed my debut.

I got my helmet, shoes, and gloves on and grabbed the bike and headed out on course.  As expected, I steadily passed all sorts of riders.  I didn't ride full gas, maybe 85 or 90 percent as I wanted to do a good run as well.  Soon the bike leg had passed and I was back at transition for another change of shoes.  I sucked down a gel and headed out on the run.

Most triathletes you talk to and articles about training for triathlon that you read talk about how difficult the transition is from biking to running.  Both in training and on race day, I never experienced it.  I just leave transition and take off running smoothly.  The only problem I seem to have is the temptation to run faster than I can sustain.  I think after the speed of the bike, I'm trying to keep that sensation going instead of settling into the slower speed of running (part of the reason I get bored with running very far!).  Other than a couple of brief patches where I walked for 50 yds. or so at a time, the run went really well.  I caught a couple more people in my age group and soon had turned back into the park towards the finish line.  I crossed the line and received my finishers medal.  My first triathlon in the books!

The times were posted very quickly and to my astonishment, I was the fastest in my age group, and 17th fastest of  the nearly 300 who did the Try-a-tri.  Although, 13th out of 15 out of the water and several minutes back, I'd had the fastest bike and the fastest run in my age group.  My bike leg was the fastest for all the Try-a-tri participants, and would have been the 8th fastest out of the 338 Sprint triathlon finishers.  I'm going to have to work hard on my swimming to be ready for the increased distance next time and hopefully find a little more speed as well.  Yeah, that's right, I said next time.  It was a lot of fun and I will certainly try to mix in a few triathlons each year with the bike racing.  In fact, I bought my wetsuit just an hour or so after the race, so as one friend told me, I guess I'm committed.