Ann Arbor Triathlon
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Ann Arbor Triathlon - TriathlonSprint
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Swim
Comments: The yellow specks looked far away. Really far. I talked with some guys in my age group about the right way to go around, which buoys actually mattered, and I still felt great. But what I should've done was to lie face down in the water and stare into the great murk, imagining that there was 60' of deathly hallows beneath me, and no safety net. I should've had a wetsuit, for confidence out there if nothing else. I should've practiced breathing. When the horn sounded, I had two good sets of breaths, just like back in the pool, and then the panic nailed my temple, seeped into my brain, and swallowed my courage. I couldn't exhale into the water, I couldn't open my eyes without the numbing anxiety of water, and I couldn't keep my hips up. Yeats spoke to me with "all changed, changed utterly; a terrible beauty is born." Springsteen hollered in my ears with "I'm caught in a crossfire, that I don't understand." Neither helped. But I didn't give up completely. Instead, I did the breast stroke. Everyone else pounded away, pulled well away, and I sputtered. Somehow, with a glance back, I noticed that not only was I not last, but there were others doing an even slower breast stroke. Maybe I wouldn't be dead last! Hope brightened. Only a few swimmers were around, so I gave the old freestyle a few more tries, breast stroking when I was overcome with death, er, dread. By the first real buoy, I knew that I probably wasn't actually going to die, but I wasn't going to do very well. So I started plodding away at the freestyle, taking smaller breaks and feeling pretty good. So good, in fact, that I did about 100 yards, looked up, and noticed myself 50 yards off course, swimming away from the next buoy. Not a confidence booster. I remember nothing of the rest of the swim except standing up as soon as I could and running extra slowly uphill to the bike. Transition 1
Comments: The bike transition felt all right, mostly because I was so dang happy to be out of the water, and I thought things were going to change for me. Bike
Comments: When I tried to push it up the first hills, all of my leg strength was sapped. Perhaps the breast stroke froggy kick is more taxing on the legs, I don't know. After about 8 miles, my legs finally woke up and gained strength, I got some confidence from passing people uphill, and the second half of the ride was great. "Working in the fields till you get your back burned / workin' 'neath the wheel till you get your facts learned. Well I got my facts learned real good right now." I kept my average up, I could do most of the hills; things felt like I thought they would during training. Transition 2
Comments: My second transition was a bit slow because I knew what was ahead on the run. The heat and humidity were way up, and my legs were beat. What would you do differently?: Get funny quick tie things on shoes Run
Comments: People passed me at the beginning and I didn't care. I was going to be disappointed with myself because of the swim, and there was no way around it. In fact, the swim pervaded my mind. Not relief, not pride for finishing it, but disappointment. This made it tough to motivate myself on the trail. I let my legs warm up slowly, but then came the grueling hills. Long, slow, plodding, and increasingly steep toward the top, these ascents were not screwing around. "Talk about a dream, try to make it real, you wake up in the night, with a fear so real. You spend your life waiting for a moment that just don't come / don't waste your time waiting." Plenty of walkers everywhere, and the run had just begun. So I walked a few hills myself, because, hey, it was in vogue these days. Finally, after about 2 miles of trying to find a good rhythm and breathing through the usual cramp, I got behind this guy going just a bit faster than the pace I wanted, and I actually enjoyed the run for a while. When the path eventually opened up, I knew I was going to get to the surface road, and there was relief, a lightening of intensity, and finally a great lapse of energy and motivation -- it needed to be over. "The last mile was an incessant oscillation between excitement and pain. Then it was over, and I hated it, myself, Disneyworld, life, babies, good stuff, etc. Post race
Warm down: Straight back to the water, floating around on my back and dunking my head, I achieved nirvana, pure bliss, whathaveyou. I finished my first triathlon. I am a triathlete. Everything feels good now, the swim slowly fading like the memory of a night terror, and I'm looking to my next race. Last updated: 2008-06-01 12:00 AM
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2008-06-09 9:53 PM |
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2008-06-10 6:20 AM in reply to: #1455945 |
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General Discussion-> Race Reports! |
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United States
eliteendeavors.com
86F / 30C
Sunny
Overall Rank = /
Age Group = 25-29
Age Group Rank = 14/28
Woke up at...I guess 4:30 is the official time, but periodically throughout the night, feeling nothing. Just awake, no different. Even with the rain, thunder, and lightning, I knew the show would go on; after 5 weeks of training, I would do my first race today, triathlon or otherwise, so I'd better get ready to go. I showered and then ate a bagel w/ a bit of cream cheese for breakfast, remembering to stay away from anything with dairy, especially yogurt. There may have been half a detour bar in there somewhere. I must have listened to "Badlands" by Springsteen 10 times before this race, and this was the first set of those infusions. "Lights out tonight, trouble in the heartland, got a head-on collision smashing in my guts, man." Double checked for everything in my bag, everything on the Swim/T1/T2 list, and we headed out to the race by 5:30. Alaina, I might note, was much cheerier than I have ever been at the start of her races.
There was no one on the roads, even when we got to the park, but no lines of irritating traffic to give me nerves either. In retrospect, maybe I should've been a bit more nervous, but I still felt nothing. Actually, what I felt was disappointment: the roads were not yet coned, no signs were on the roads where I'd be riding, no buoys in the water, and very few people around. After race packet pickup, I went uphill to the transition area to set my gear up. I'm glad I practiced this the night before because I felt confident that I had everything. Alaina was a great help in deciding the details, like which way to hang the bike, practicing taking it off the rack, and where to come into my row. We met up with Trixie, who kept spirits high by making friends with everyone in sight, and that was fun. She and Alaina pointed out VIP, but they were just folks to me. We saw Robyn and went to the BT tent to hang out before the race, and then the buoys arrived.