2nd Place

This post was originally a part of the now defunct Somnaplegic blog.

At the ages of 34 and 37 respectively my best friend Jen and I decided to participate in a triathlon.

Step one in this process was, for me, struggling to internalize that it is spelled and pronounced tri-athlonnot triath-a-lon. I’m still skeptical about this. It’s sounds much better my way [1].

For those who don’t know, a triathlon involves swimming, biking, and running and it is one of the fastest growing sports among middle aged women[2]. It turns out that the grit, planning, and perseverance necessary for a sport like this align pretty well with all the stuff middle aged women already do.

I was first introduced to the triathlon while watching the Sydney Olympics. In the final 10k run portion the three medalists ran down the home stretch almost in a pack. I was enchanted as the 33, 31, and 29 year old women, practically ancient by Olympic standards, and one of whom had three year old child, crossed the finish line. All three continued to compete and win in their sport for years to follow [3].

The women had swam a mile, biked 25, and run 6 in two hours. They literally ran out of the ocean, tore off their swim caps and slammed on clip shoes before hopping on bicycles. At the end of the cycle route, they jumped off, carried their own bikes into the transition zone, ditched the cycling shoes and set off running. BAD ASS.

You know what isn’t bad ass? Me. I am definitely not a tower of feminine strength and resolve. My best activity in elementary school gym class was skipping. Not skipping rope, mind you, just skipping [4]. Remember that “husky” kid who was always the last one to finish relays across the gym (we used to move chalkboard erasers back and forth). Like, everyone, even the kid with the birth defect in her knee, were done, but there was this one kid who still had two (or three) cycles left to go? Yeah, that was me. Only I wasn’t overweight and I didn’t have asthma. I sucked at gym and I had the bad attitude to go with it. This was my report card in elementary school:

Social Studies – A

English – A

Science – A

Penmanship – C-

Music – A

Gym – B-

Grading in elementary school gym classes is like a reverse Richter Scale. So if a 4.0 was the mildest earthquake you could measure, my grade would level a city in Asia better than any Kaiju. I may have been the only kid in the history of my school to get a B- in gym class.

There wasn’t much improvement in the upper grades, though I was co-champion of the 7th period 7th grade girls badminton championship and once “tackled” an opponent near the end zone in coed flag football in 8th grade resulting in a win for our team [5]. Ah, the glory minutes of my adolescent sportsmanship.

So at the age of 34, not able to run or swim, I thought, yeah, triathlon! Jen had serious running chops, having completed half-marathons, and was willing to run at my slugs pace listening to me complain about all the things. It turns out that if you just let me free form rant about cyclists who don’t wear helmets, people who step into the bike lane without looking, and the grave affront that is coffee, you can get me to do almost any monotonous physical activity.

We watched a lot of Youtube videos and took a few swim lessons at the Y. I figured out that the key to swimming an efficient crawl is to have a mantra. My mantra, recited in my head in the voice of Regular-Sized-Rudy from Bob’s Burgers went as follows:

Slow

<stroke>

The F$@k

<stroke>

Down

<breath>

My crawl is a thing of beauty. I extend and twist my torso on the reach, I pull hard, and push the full length on the back end. There is no slapping of the water, no awkward elbow angle, just smooth, elegant efficiency. I sneer at those 7 year-olds and their dog paddles, as they lap me, repeatedly. 

The event we set our sights on was a brand new triathlon and it was just a 20 minute drive from our homes. It was also perfectly calibrated for me. We were doing what is called a sprint. Sprints are typically 1 kilometer in the water, 12-15 miles on the bike, and a 5k run. For new triathletes, the swim is typically the most challenging portion. The organizers of this event were looking to attract a lot of new participants and to get the very active local cycling population involved. Catering to these two demographics they halved the swim and doubled the ride. And the ride was a doozy. It started up a series of steep and unwelcoming hills. This was perfect for me. I was a weak swimmer and an indifferent runner, but I’d spend 3 years biking across town towing a kid on trail-a-bike. One thing I could do was climb up a hillside on a bike like a baller.

Jen and I trained like two moderately committed middle aged women with families and really busy jobs [6]. Hells yeah! She was sure to beat me out of the water and on the run, but I had 25 glorious miles, half of which were up some pretty mean hills, in which to catch her.

Race day arrived. There we were in our spiffy tri-suits bikes all set up in the transition ready to rock and roll. The sport starts in waves, first the men’s Olympic distance swimmers go, then a minute later the women’s. After that is about a 10 minute break, while the swimmers clear the launch area. Then the men’s sprinters go and a minute later the women’s. This one minute later business really sucks for the women. It means that effectively the men can be in the water for several minutes acclimating but the women just have to wade in and go. If you’re not into open water swimming you probably don’t know this, but diving into cold water and trying to swim is like taking the ice bucket challenge. A lot of gulping and gasping for air and flailing. Starting in a pack of gulping flailing women is like being in a blind rugby scrum. Add to that my strong desire not to be bleeping touched by scary swamp monsterswhile I’m in the water and you can see where I might not have had the best start. There was a lot of “Ah! Ah! NO! Nonononono!” going on, but fortunately, no one heard me in the clamor, or if they did, they had the kindness in their hearts not to mention it in front of me later. 

Swimming in open water is very different from swimming in the pool, but I had prepared myself. I was also greatly advantaged when the buoy we were swimming to untethered and started floating away. All the fastest swimmers were around it and back to shore by the time it happened, but the middle swimmers were left chasing it down until Jen shouted at one of the people in kayaks to wrangle the danged thing. They waved everyone around and I was able to turn right about where the buoy had been, while other folks were now behind me. HAHA! Nature is on my side. I kept thinking that as everyone passed me back to the water’s edge. 

But there was still one woman behind me and held on to that. I would not be the last one out of the water! As I stood up in the shallows and gallumped my way to dry land I could sense the woman behind me reaching the edge of the water, but I was clear and headed to the transition.  Over the intercom the announcer belted out “And now getting out of the water in her first triathlon, Betty Jones, 71 years young just yesterday!”

Yup. I beat a 71 year old out of the water. Go me.

OK, not auspicious, but now was the bike and at the bike I was actually non-terrible. I hopped on my 25lb steel framed hybrid bike and set off up the hill! I was feeling particularly sleek having invested in pedal clips and shoes and had adjusted my handle bars all the way forward. Look at me go. 

Actually, I did really well on the hills. I passed a bunch of women on much nicer bikes than mine. Still no Jen, but I’d get there. I powered up, not even getting into my lowest gears until the steepest part near the end. I crested the summit, victoriously, having now passed a man also in his 70’s (hey, he had a whole 1 minute head start). 

In my personal experience, there are two kinds of cyclists. No, there are a bjillion different kinds of cyclists, but in this moment one difference stood out among the rest. There are cyclists who huff and puff up the hill, all the while telling themselves I just have to make it to the top, just make it to the top. They crest the hill, take in the view and go, “WEEEEEEEEEEE!” all the way down. And then there’s me who huffs and puffs up the hill feeling smug, passing people on road bikes, and then gets near the top and thinks, “frack!” I crest the top take in the view, whimper, and ride the brakes all the way down going, “oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.”

Despite the gratuitous braking, during which several people I had passed on the hill subsequently passed me going “weee-ha!” and swooping around corners, somewhere at the bottom of the hills I passed Jen. Waiving I said, “Hi Jen! Bye Jen!”  

I now had 14 miles to try and grow my lead before Jen demolished me on the 5k run. I was pleased to discover that despite my beat up heavy bike and my general aversion to speed, I was able to pass a number of other cyclists, including a whole pack of men who’d beat me out of the water by a large margin. I was riding high, slamming protein bars and waving to all the cows and sheep. 

As I neared the end of the ride, powering up a small rise, I heard slight humming, and then a “good job” as someone darted past me and zipped away out of sight. Wait, who the heck was that? Did some dude I’d passed get an amazing 2ndwind? Then I realized, that this was the leader for the Olympic distance. He’d swam a mile, exiting the water just after me and then biked 50 miles through the hills. Dang. He now had a 10k run to complete.

I rolled into the transition zone, dropped off my bike, changed shoes and headed off through the park. I was feeling it now. I didn’t so much run as shuffle along the path through the park, chanting to myself, “can’t stop, weasels will get me.” I just needed to keep rolling long enough so Jen couldn’t pass me when she got on the running course. I figured I had maybe 5 minutes lead time on her. 

I passed a woman in her 60’s. We were wearing the same tri-suit. I nodded and managed to wheeze out, “twins!” as I passed, returning to my updated mantra of “can’t stop, scary clowns will get me.” She gave me strange look, like perhaps someone needed to be called on the weirdo rambling about clowns who was clearly suffering a mental breakdown. I only realized that that part of this probably had something to do with the fact that I’d pulled a running shirt on over my suit and there was no way she’d get my “twins!” statement. 

The last portion of the run snaked behind a huge wall of blackberry bushes. The runners emerged from the thicket, ran down a gentle causeway on the edge of the lake and then turned down about a 200 meter ramp to the balloon bedecked finish line. 

I have to confess, that I had to briefly slow down to walk behind the blackberry bushes and hold my hands in the air riding out a side stitch. But no one saw it, so you can’t prove I didn’t run the whole thing. I pulled my suit out the crack of my but and rounded the blackberry corner running smoothly like a champion. There was no one in sight behind or in front of me. I had the whole final run to myself.

As I inched closer to the turn I heard the speakers crackling to life. “Alright folks! Our winner is almost here! Get ready to give a round of applause.” OK, now this asshole is just f!@#ing with me. He saw me get out of the water right a head of Betty and he’s having some fun. “Ha-ha, announcer dude!” I muttered to myself. Then I heard a light swooshing sound. “Good job,” he whispered and glided by to the finish line. 

It was “The Guy.” The winner of the Olympic distance had managed to pass me twice in the same race. The crowd cheered, announcements were made, medals awarded. I coasted in casually in the midst of the celebration and shouted to the announcer, “Hey, does that mean I got second place?.”

They didn’t say “no” - so I’m taking it.  

Jen rolled up a few moments later. “I got second place! I shouted from the side.” 

She squinted at me with a knowing eye that said, “No, you didn’t.”

But she wasn’t there, so she’ll never really know.

And that is the story of how I got 2nd place in my first triathlon.

~~~

[1] For the record: sher-BET, not sher-bert; care-Ah-mel, not Car-mel; and different from, not different than. I can haz good speakin’. 

[2] You’re probably familiar with the Iron Man, which includes the same sports in the same order, but at extreme distances (2.4 mile open ocean swim, 110 mile bike ride, topped off with a marathon).

[3] Though one was eventually disgraced for using performance enhancing drugs and had to retire.

[4] I WAS sought after by the rope skippers because I could turn double-dutch and egg beaters flawlessly, even with a crap partner.

[5] That means I pulled off his flag. He slightly overestimated how slow I was (which was really slow) but greatly underestimated how much I would enjoy taking out a smug boy who had once called me “motor mouth.” I told you I have a bad attitude, but it can be deployed in service of spite, malice, and minor feats of athleticism.

[6] We did actually go out and swim in the lake and practice the first hilly half of the race a few weeks before, but admitting to putting in real effort makes the story less funny, you know?

*This post was originally a part of the now defunct Somnaplegic blog.