There is no Tri: The Swim: I Don't Want to Die!

If you've never swam in a lake on a blustery March morning, let me sum it up for you: freezing-ass cold. The kind of cold that snaps you the fuck awake, knocks the wind out of you and takes "shrinkage" to a whole 'nother level. And that's WITH a wetsuit -- sexy open-backed wetsuit, I mean.

I honestly didn't think the lack of a full closure on my wetsuit would be too bad, but it was. See, I knew there would be a point in the swim when I'd be cold and tired -- or cold and freaked out, tired and freaked out, or cold, tired and freaked out -- and seriously consider calling it a day. But I never imagined it would be in the first 30 seconds.

Despite wanting to call out for my mommy and go into a fetal tuck, I pressed forward. I had counted to 10 before entering the water because I had heard all the horror stories of getting goggles kicked off your face or taking a knee to the head when you go balls out at the start of the race. So I figured my 10 count would provide me with a nice cushion between me and the rest of the pack and I'd be able to concentrate on my stroke and breathing (and not think about it feeling like someone was continuously dropping ice down the back of my shirt). But it turns out I'm a better swimmer than a lot of people, because within about 30 seconds I found myself amongst a pack of flailing triathletes, seemingly swimming for their lives.

But instead of trying to strategically weave my way through the pack -- did I mention the visibility in the water was pretty much zero? -- I stopped and treaded water for a second to get my bearings. This was a mistake, mostly because in a lake, there's no wall to push off from, no bottom to stand on and no side to grab onto.

After a second of panic, I decided to test the buoyancy of the wetsuit and rolled over onto my back. And then I floated. It could have been 10 seconds or 10 minutes (I still don't know), but I needed to stop, catch my breath and calm myself down. As I lay there floating, looking up at the dull, gray sky, I thought of how disappointed in myself I'd be if I gave up, so I rolled back over and said, "Fuck it." And then I swam. I did the breast stroke, the freestyle, the dog paddle, the side stroke, and maybe a couple of other strokes that technically haven't been invented yet. But I wasn't about to quit. And I now also knew I wasn't about to drown, so I had that going for me, too.

Quick interlude ... Something anyone who has done an open water swim in competition will tell you is, "Don't forget to sight." What this means is, preferably before the race starts, pick out a large, static object on the opposite shore and swim toward it, which will keep you on a relatively straight line.

And back ... So in lieu of risking a concussion or a kick to the velveties, I decided to just hold my position in the pack I was in and eventually we'd all end up back on shore. Unfortunately, I forgot about the whole "sighting" thing and looked up after about a minute to find myself a good 25 yards off-course. I think at this point I actually yelled, "Fuuuuuuuuck!" and proceeded to blame the people in front of me for leading me so far off-course.

Regardless of whose fault it really was (ok. ok, it was my own fault!), I carried on. And on. And on. Thankfully, I wasn't the only person having a rough swim and several of us trudged along together like a pod of dolphins born without flippers. Finally, I made it back to shore, but then had to run my ass up a short hill to the transition area, where my bike was wondering what the hell was taking me so long....


Next time: The Bike: MORE Equipment Malfunctions?!

There is no Tri: The Swim: Preamble

I grew up in Carpinteria, CA, with a pool in my backyard and the beach less than a mile from my front door. So it goes without saying that I feel comfortable in water and wasn't too concerned about being ready for the swimming leg of the triathlon. I'll admit, swimming long distances was never something I did with any regularity growing up, but after several weeks of training in our community pool and hitting the 1,400-yard mark for one session (the actual tri was 550 yards), I felt fairly confident leading up to La Quinta. The only thing missing was an actual open-water swim, which is vastly different than swimming in a calm, temperature-controlled pool that has black lane lines for spotting, 100% visibility and walls and a shallow bottom to rest on. But other than that, I felt like I was ready.

So anyway, back to Lake Cahuilla. One thing I read over and over while training was that it's important to warm up before the race starts --a short jog, bike ride or swim -- to get the blood flowing and to work out some of the pre-race jitters. Unfortunately, my event warmup consisted of panic and frustration. 

That's because as I zipped my wetsuit, something strange happened: the zipper made its way to the top, but it didn't zip closed. That's right, the zipper broke. After unsuccessfully doing a visual scan for the wetsuit rental booth, I returned to my rack and asked a fellow racer if he could pop the zipper back in -- which, of course, isn't actually possible on a wetsuit. He suggested closing it up with safety pins, but somehow I had the presence of mind to ask the question, "How am I going to get it off?"



So it was on to Plan B. I decided to just punk it and closed the velcro flap at the top, giving me quite possibly the world's first backless triathlon wetsuit. Don't get me wrong, I know I looked dead sexy, but this wasn't part of the plan for swimming in 65-degree water at 7:30 am.

I did have a chance to wade into the lake for a minute and crouch down to let the freezing-ass water into my open back, as I figured it was better to feel that shock before the horn when off than after. After that, I walked back onto the beach and waited with about 75 other people. The funny thing is that only one person mentioned to me that my zipper was down, but I chalked that up to everyone being busy getting into their "zone." Either that or they were simply mesmerized by my daring yet delectable open-backed wetsuit.

So a couple more minutes went by, and as I idly chatted with a couple other dudes an air horn suddenly went off and it was a stampede into the water. My plan was to hang back and swim on the outside, in order to avoid swimming into other people and getting kicked in the face, ribs or any other part of my person.

As most of the herd scampered into the lake, I waited, counted to 10, walked into the water and started swimming....

Next time: The Swim: I Don't Want to Die!

There is no Tri....

Swim. Bike. Run. Go as fast as you can. Don't stop. That's the basic premise of a triathlon.

The first time I ever talked about entering a triathlon was after I had been running three times a week for a couple months and was feeling confident and possibly up to the challenge. That was 14 years ago.

On the morning of Sunday, March 7th, I swam 500 meters, biked 14 miles and ran 3 miles in the Toyota Desert Sprint Triathlon in La Quinta. Approximately 5,000 days after first bringing it up in conversation, I had finally finished my first triathlon.

I will not lie to you: it was difficult, overwhelming and exhausting. But it was also the most gratifying thing I've ever done (athletically) in my life. There were definitely a few rough spots, some equipment problems and lots of room for improvement, but in the end I didn't really care because once I crossed that finish line, I had achieved my goal.

Scanning the crowd for Adrian....

My total time was 1:49:00, which put me 323rd out of 462 competitors and 18/24 in my division (my division being Clydes 35+, which is the politically correct way of saying "old fat dudes"). If I was 323rd out of 462 in my high school graduating class, that would be pretty embarrassing. But the beauty of the triathlon is that it's 500 people competing together, but in reality everyone is racing against themselves. And this sport  does not discriminate against gender, fitness level, age or physical limitations. In my race there was a guy who weighed close to 300 pounds, several septuagenarians, and at least two people who had each lost the lower half of a leg.

Spectators cheered for people they had never seen before, competitors offered words of encouragement as they blew past fellow racers (yes, I got plenty of that) and the 462nd finisher was no less of a triathlete than the person who finished first. And I'm willing to bet that #462 -- along with the other 461 -- will be out there again soon. Swimming. Biking. Running.


I'll be posting a more detailed account soon....