First Triathlon

This is posted to reassure all our relatives who asked us to let them know we survived our first triathlon this morning. We did! And we both got our special wish - not to finish last!

the day began at 3:45AM, when we had to get up in order to arrive in Waukegan, IL by 5AM for a meeting of our The Fitness Race team. Good thing we brought along long pants and a light jacket, as it was still pretty chilly as we prepared.

A sprint distance triathlon is 3 events in 1, starting with a half mile swim, continuing with a 13.2 mile bike ride, and ending with a 5K (or in this case a 4 mile) run. Each section begins and ends near a central transition area where entrants stow gear and clothing.

This was the sixth year of this triathlon, celebrated by offering six portapotties per area for the 890 entrants to share. The line quickly grew to over ten minutes. We'd have gladly paid another buck at registration to shorten the line. There's always the lake, but we were about to swim in that water, whose bacterial count was already high yesterday.

The swim start was a shock to our whole team. Everyone was so pumped up that we all started ineffectively, each having to forcibly calm down and swim smoothly.

I discovered it was a bad idea to have started at the back of my wave, as I turned out to be one of the faster swimmers in our wave - sort of a father-daughter mashup of age 50+ men and women up to age 22. Accepting that I now swim well was hard, as I never beat anyone during two years on my high school swim team forty years ago,

I also need to practice porpoising in and out of the water the next time I do a beach start, rather than just running when the water is too high to lift my leg over but still shallow enough not to require swimming.

Like most newbies, I overdid in the swim portion, and ended up having to walk across the sand beach afterwards, just to keep my heart rate down to a level that would permit me to complete two more events.

I was shocked how far it was from the water to where my bike was waiting for the next leg of the race, and how far I then had to run beside my bike before being allowed to climb on and ride.

The best thing about the swim portion was having a "Farmer John"-style (sleeveless) Orca Sonar wetsuit. It kept me afloat and warm in the 69 degree Lake Michigan water, thereby dramatically improving my swimming time. The Middlewife also had a wetsuit, and agrees my next couple of days would have been miserable otherwise, as she really dislikes cold water.

I bike a lot, so enjoyed that portion of the event except that the four-lane road was badly maintained. I counted over a dozen expensive racing bikes down and out, and twice had to stop to remount the chain on my own bike (as did four others on our team), even though the course was flat enough I never had to shift out of the bike's top gear.

Today's most searing memory was being passed by a guy who looked back to comment "Sweet" about my folding bike (one of only two in the race), and immediately hit a crack and blew out his rear tire. The guy was tough as nails though. He rode at least another very fast mile on that flat tire. By then he needed not only a new tube, but an entire new wheel. Ouch!

The next transition was dragged out by my managing to tear the mounting hole on the "bib" number I was to wear on my chest. I had to dump my 5 gallon gear bucket to find a safety pin.

The run is the part of the race I endure rather than enjoy. I've only recently become able to run 4 miles, and still do so at roughly a 12 minute per mile pace, rather than the 8 or 9 minute pace of the good runners who kept passing me today. For now, that's as fast as I can go while keeping my heart rate down enough to finish even a 5K, let alone 4 miles.

As expected, the first quarter mile was worst. That's when I'd barely begun, but was already about as tired as I would get. What kept me going was simply knowing I'd already done the same distance twice last week.

The best part was approaching the mid-point, and realizing that (since we'd run uphill the whole way) the entire rest of the race would be downhill. Bonus!

Another high point was seeing Mindy from our team running uphill and looking miserable, and being able to give her the good news she was just behind our team lead. As expected, that gave her an approachable goal.

As I crossed the finish line, I was shocked to hear the announcer call out my name, home town and time. We wore an R.F.I.D. tag that some computer instantly matched with my entry info. Between that and the heart rate monitor that guided my effort and the GPS that guided our car this morning, I was struck anew by the technology we now take for granted that hadn't even been imagined yet fifty years ago!

My next joy was waiting with the Middlewife and my new brother as the third member of their relay team finished. They were a very special group. None of the three could have finished alone today, but together, with each doing their best event, not only did they finish, but they weren't even last, despite having a runner who is 3 months pregnant and a cyclist who'd never ridden over two miles at a time until a month ago!

I was thrilled with my under two hour finish time, faster than I'd dared to dream of. But this is not a sport at which I'll over prevail, due to its self-selecting nature. Of all the 50+ year old men near Chicago, only 19 entered today. Needless to say, those for whom this is a regular sport are fast. Despite setting a new personal best time today, I finished ahead of only two other guys my age, a couple minutes behind two others on our team, and almost 25 minutes behind the average finisher overall..

I am so proud of our group, founded on the idea that folks who need to lose at least 40 pounds can do so by preparing for an athletic challenge. As our leader Mark pointed out, it's a lot easier to motivate folks toward a positive goal like completing a triathlon than a negative goal like losing weight.

We are now one month away from doing this again in the largest triathlon in the world, but now we're veterans, looking forward to even better times (not least because the run is shorter.)