Tri-ing Experience

Obligatory pre race selfie

This is going to be a long post about the tri sprint I did in Santa Cruz, but I'll try to keep it interesting. First some context, a large part of my summer has been preparing for this event, and this past Sunday, August 13th, one of my aunt's birthdays and my parents’ anniversary, was the big day.

I started drafting this post during the swim portion and I had planned on writing about how the tri was a lesson in humility, but at one point humility became more humiliation… but I'm jumping ahead of the story.

A tri sprint is a short version of a triathlon; the distances can vary a depending on the course. The one we did, Tri Santa Cruz, had a 750 m swim, 12 mile bike ride, and a 5k run. Because this is such a shortened version of the race, I had assumed there would be other normal local people who enjoyed a challenge. I had assumed we'd fit right in; then we got there, and I realized how wrong I was.

For starters almost everyone had a road bike of some type; for the first time in my life, I felt very self-conscious wheeling my $100 Sears special from high school to its place. The next thing I noticed was most of the people had some version of a tri-suit; my party was instead running/riding in swim wear, covered by shorts and a shirt. But we had our tri wetsuits, which helped us blend in with everyone else. Before you can put that on, however, the officials write your number on both of your arms and thighs. Then they write your age on the back of your calf. I'm not sure what the purpose of that is, except to rub in how badly you're losing to people 20 years older, or 10-15 years younger.

I was the most nervous about the swim for two reasons: 1) I never was able to swim the full distance, 2) I don't have a lot of experience swimming in open water, let alone in a wetsuit. Good news, I didn't have to do this alone, I had convinced one of my best friends, Leila, and one of my brothers, Joey, to do the tri with me. Joey was in a different group, but Leila and I got grouped together for the start time so I knew that worst case I'd have someone to help drag me along for the swim.

Joey and Leila air up Joey's bike pre race

I'd like to take a moment and say how much I HATE being the weakest one in a group. Hate, hate, hate it. However, the week before our tri, I realized how much faster Leila was not only at swimming, but also at riding, and I resigned myself to the fact that my running wouldn't be able to make up the difference. Leila, however, is a much cooler friend than I and maintained that we were still gonna do it together. As for Joey, barring an injury, he will always be waaaaaaaaaay ahead of me. But considering how much more he works out, and that he's a guy, I reconciled with him beating me a long time ago.

The race began, I jumped in the water, and I started to freak out. Not because it was cold, the wetsuit solved that problem, and not because I couldn't move, the suit was surprisingly flexible, but because I couldn't see. The water was brown and muddy. Kind of like a lake, but worse. For some reason, not being able to see, and inhaling salt instead of chlorine, made me unable to figure out my breathing, "when should I exhale, when should I turn my head for more air, how can I figure it out if I can't see the bubbles?!?" Since my brain short-circuited so quickly, I switched to just keeping my head above water, which anyone could tell you, makes swimming a lot harder to do. My plan had been to alternate, freestyle with breaststroke, however, I quickly discovered, my wetsuit made breaststroke a lot more difficult. Freestyle, however, whether due to the salt water, or the the extra buoyancy of the wet suit, was a lot easier than normal and I found a groove about half way in. I did throw in a little side stroke when I needed a break. Thank you Mom for those hours in neighbors’ pools.

Leila stayed fairly close, but another woman and I alternated in a race for last place. But that was ok, I knew swimming was my weakest area, and I was just proud at how well it went. Not only was it the farthest I had swum, Leila's watch also told me it was the fastest.

Once out of the water, we grabbed our flip flops and started running back to the transition area, while attempting to pull our wetsuits down. Since I still don't have contacts, I left my goggles on so I could sort of see; even with the extra help, I almost ate it on a curb right in front of some friends who came to cheer us on. Not that I realized they were there until after we'd passed by and Leila had waved....(In my defense, my goggles were pretty foggy.)

The trickiest part about the transition was pulling the wetsuit off. I also realized how far behind we were because almost every single bike in our area was gone. (Also, Joey who started like 10 min behind us, had caught up.) We changed, and headed out. Of course the bikes start uphill and Joey quickly passed us. The friends were all waiting at the top cheering, unfortunately at that moment I was feeling rather self-conscious, so I yelled either "I hate you", or "I'm going to kill you" toward the one who organized the whole thing. I don't think she heard me.....

It quickly became obvious, that Leila and I could not do the bike ride together, attempting it would have been too dangerous. The triathlon bike and run were both along Westcliff. The sprint distance did two laps on the bike, while the international distance did four. And this is where the frustration, and humiliation, came in. I, and my beloved "cheap" bike I so proudly purchased, were passed by pretty much everyone. The first lap, I was mostly ok, spending my time drafting parts of this blog. By the second lap, I was TICKED and drafting a very different post.

As I watched person after person pass me, I realized some of them weren't pedaling any harder or faster than I was, yet they were still pulling away. People who looked less in shape than me, (yes judgmental, but I was in full comparison mode) were whizzing. I was ready to punch someone if I had to hear, "on your left", one more time! I knew my bike skills weren't that great, but I hadn't realized they were that bad. The gap between Leila and myself widened. She doesn't have a road bike either, but she's a freaking beast on her bike, and she at least got to pass some of the narrow-tired freaks.

Toward the end, I was passed by two other people with what looked like mountain bikes; that didn't improve my mood. I knew if I could get off the bike I would have a chance, the running was my strongest leg, but the gap was too great, I wasn't going to catch them. As I struggled to keep going, I let my anger mount and start to fuel me. I kept pushing, and in the second lap decided that the time to conserve energy was over. This was the event, and I was going to leave it all on the mat. Honestly, that concept was the only possible salve to my abused ego; I was getting an whooping like I'd never gotten before. At least never when competing against other women (except that one time I got to wrestle). Usually I'm a middle of a pack person, not great, but not terrible. But Sunday, I was the weakest link by a long sea mile.

An hour and four minutes later, I finally parked my bike, and took off running. I'd hoped to see Leila to high-five her, but somehow we didn't cross paths again. (I never saw Joey after he passed on the start of the bike ride either. I was kind of bummed about that. But at least he didn't lap me, which was my fear.)

I didn't fully time myself but figured after all the swimming and riding, I was probably doing a 10 min mile pace. I kept pushing but tried to save enough for a sprint at the end. I wanted to prove something after feeling humiliated, so I decided to finish strong.

As I rounded the corner and saw the finish ahead, a voice cut above the crowd, a voice I used to hear from the bleachers yelling "toes Nicole toes", on the rare occasions I'd hit the baseball. My parents had driven two hours, on their anniversary, to watch me finish the race. I cannot begin to describe how glad I was that I'd saved that last bit to sprint. I won't lie, I also almost started bawling once I crossed the finish line. And then the majority of the muscles in my body tightened and I said, "ow" and "pain, lots of pain" so I limped around making groaning noises instead.

Leila crossing the finish line

I found out later, Leila missed my finish because she'd gone to check to make sure I hadn't just given up. She didn't think I would, but she could tell I was furious when she passed me, and figured I was mad enough to pull just some crazy stunt. On her way back she heard my name called. Ironically, Joey had brought his camera, but didn't get a pic of Leila at the end, because my parents surprised him by showing up too.

Before this race, I had clung to the idea that all I had to do was train harder, and even with a poorer quality bike, I'd be able to keep up. I still think there's some truth to that, but I also recognize, I'm not that skilled. If I ever do one of these again, I may invest in a better bike. Perhaps even go so far as to buy a road bike, a contraption I have found ridiculous since childhood. (I mean, seriously, what good is something you can't go off-roading on? #datcountrydirtlife.)

Overall I think we all did pretty good. For all three of us, the run was our strongest leg compared to everyone else, but as Leila pointed out, "it's what we have the most experience with."

Leila got 77th out of 84 women, finishing the tri in 1:59:27.1. Her run was 43rd with a solid 30:34.3.

Joey was 31st out of 125 men, finishing in 1:20:50.7. His run was 11th at 19:28.8.

My final results for the tri sprint were 79th out of 84 women. I was: 76th in swimming, 83rd in biking, and 21st in running. My transition between the bike and the run was a blazing 50 seconds. As Joey said, I was an angry runner. But I got a personal best for 3 miles at 26:49.0.

We learned from this experience that apparently, normal people do not just do triathlons. There's a culture I don't fully understand around it; all I can conclude is that the participants are a bit of an odd breed who are more hardcore than I ever wish to be.

Post race

Now that I've had some time to process and cool off, I can honestly I'm glad I did it, I'm happy with both the run and swim. If I ever do something like this again though, you better bet, I'm gonna swallow my stubbornness, and get a new bike. Next time, there would be payback. I suppose that statement shows how tightly I hold onto my tattered pride. In a lot of respects, I failed, I finished last among my friends and I couldn’t keep up with other people in my age group. One of the hardest parts was accepting the well wishes and congratulations from family and friends, because I felt like a complete failure. But that’s not how they saw it, they saw someone who set a goal, worked toward it, and saw it through to the finish. That kind of support can be difficult to receive, it’s humbling because you know how much you really don’t deserve it.

To those who followed up and asked how it went, now you know why I was answering so poorly over text, there was a lot to process. To those of you cheering for us both from afar, and in person, thank you. It might be difficult for me to say in person, but I recognize the loyalty and sacrifice you made to help us finish strong.

I knew I would learn a lot about diligence and consistency, what I didn’t realize was how much this experience was going to teach me about grace. Grace that I need to give myself, and grace that is given by others.