Towards the beginning of summer my best friend from high school and college called me to see if I was interested in completing a triathlon. We ran track and cross country in high school together. We have also ran a few half marathons together so we can commiserate about training and then met each other for the weekend for the event. She usually talks me into these events by offering me brownies-- I am a sucker for her brownies, enough that I will willing run 13 miles to "earn" a brownie. She suggested doing a triathlon this year and I was on board. I then mentioned the idea to Arthur and talked him into training and competing in it as well. I think there might have been a few days after a long hard bike ride followed by a painful run he was probably wishing he hadn't agree to this for his wife. It was a great project to train for with one another this summer and was good motivation to get out in the morning and evening even if it was pretty warm.
I love road races and events like this but my one problem is that it usually requires getting out of bed at an ungodly hour on a weekend-- where's the fun in that? It was 4:45am when the alarm went off and we climbed out of our partially inflated air mattress we had spent the night on to greet the morning. We arrived early to get our bikes checked, marked with large numbers on our arms and legs, and to sort through and set up the variety of equipment which is needed for an event like this. On each leg and arm we had our numbers written in black marker and also had to wear a chip around our ankles since the race was "chip timed" meaning that your time begins and ends when you cross the mats at each stage since not everyone starts at the same time. One participant made the comment that it was if the End Times were coming since they track your movements with a chip and our numbers were like the mark of the beast.
At 7am the first participant jumped in the pool to begin the 400 yard swim and every 10 seconds another person jumped in the water until the pool was full of bodies swimming back and forth zig-zagging to the next lane until 8 lengths of the pool was completed. Swimming hasn't been a strong suit in the past. I did work as a life guard but the pool was only 3.5 feet deep so being a strong swimmer wasn't necessarily essential for the job. Training for the swimming has been my favorite part of this summer and I improved quite a bit. Arthur and I both didn't swim as well today as we had in practice. Arthur got caught up in a group of people which made it more difficult for him.
Once the swimming was complete we ran soaking wet to put on our shoes and get our bikes. The next portion was biking 10.5 miles. At the park were the competition was held there was a road that makes a 2 miles loop so all the competitors did 5 laps. The biking part was where the beginners were set apart from those who are serious triathletes. There were some pretty fancy bikes today that went whizzing past me but my bike got me there and in a faster times than I have done in practice. Arthur thought his biking went really well too and he felt strong the whole way. It wasn't till this evening we looked at the posted results and I had a faster bike time we knew something wasn't quite right. Arthur easily blows me away on the bike all the time so the only thing we can figure is that he possibly did 6 laps instead of 5-- Arthur's always the over achiever.
Next was the hardest part of the race, transitioning from biking to running. For the first half mile your legs are in shock wandering what in the world happened from biking to now having to run and they want to mutiny on you until after a mile where they finally succumb to the torture. Running is my strongest event so I was able to pass several people here although I didn't train for the running as hard as I would have liked. Arthur hates running and was dreading this part of the race all summer. It was only this past week that he felt like he could run and slightly enjoy the experience. I ran the time I had predicted and Arthur was surprised with how well he ran. And we were both still alive and breathing at the end-- this is also important. I finished in 1:21:04 and Arthur in 1:32:45 (including a possible extra 7 minutes for his extra lap on the bike-- he might have placed in his age group without the extra 2 miles of biking but Arthur isn't one to take the easy way out).
Overall we really enjoyed it and are ready to sign up again next year. It was a great race and for our first time things went really well but we also learned quite a bit about running a triathlon which could be helpful in the future. Also this was a lot easier than running 13 miles and I still got a brownie from my friend. When we got home this afternoon we took about a 2 hour nap-- we were tired puppies after the Salty Dog. Omnia Vincit Amor.
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