Tri Again: The Gory Details

Thanks again for all the good wishes so many of you have emailed me regarding my second (and second successful) triathlon. When the guy who sold me my bike asked me what my goals were, I was honest. I told him "to finish without shame." My secondary goal was to improve my time in every segment, including the transitions. I did that, too.

And apparently my third goal was to have something to blog a lot about, because here it comes...

I’m really happy with my performance and how much I enjoyed the tri this time. The first time, back in Wisconsin in 2004, was great and fulfilling and all that after I’d finished, but because I didn’t know what to expect, etc., I didn’t really have fun the whole time like I did on Sunday.

I would consider this experience an even greater success if the women reading this decide to do their first Danskin Triathlon (though you’d have to wait till 2008, since all the remaining races for this year are filled), but more on that in a bit.

The Countdown

I arrived early the day before (Saturday) to make the Team Survivor breakfast they always have. Team Survivor members are women who’ve had cancer, usually but not always of the breastuses variety.

As you know, I don’t go in for all that rah-rah pink ribbon stuff, but when I did the Danskin in 2004 in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, my friend/co-worker Lonnie convinced me it was worth waking up crazyearly to make the breakfast, and it was. Mostly because all the other women there are afraid of the swim, which is the one segment I feel good about, so to hear them talk about how terrified they are, it gets me thinking "they sound ridiculous... wait, maybe I sound ridiculous when I talk about how scared I am of the bike portion."

Going to the Team Survivor breakfast is important for me for another reason, and it’s not because everyone has to get up and Tell Their Story, Oprah-style, with tears and sentimentality optional but encouraged (that’s actually my least favorite part of the event).

When it was my turn I didn’t focus on having had cancer (after all, all I did was essentially sit or lay around while other people shot drugs and radiation into me). Instead I told the women how my first thought crossing the finish line in 2004 was "Screw you, Mr. Bianchi!" (Mr. Bianchi being my sadistic gym teacher in fourth and fifth grade, who only wanted to coach naturally athletic boys and viewed girls, especially chubby, uncoordinated, God forbid left-handed girls, as odious creatures who should have been culled from the herd long ago.)

Anyway, the other key reason I go to the breakfast is because then you get to register and pick up your stuff early, which means you then get to the expo early... and the expo is where the free booty is.

This year’s expo did not disappoint... I hauled home an excellent collection of baseball hats, Jelly Belly sports beans, REI coupons, enough water bottles to build a makeshift pontoon raft and more. Being a Team Survivor member netted me extra loot, like an extra t-shirt in addition to the official race one.

Another plus about being a Team Survivor member... I was able to get my wave switched, so that instead of starting in one of the last waves, I would start in the sixth, with all the returning Survivors (first-time Survivor participants get to start in the second wave).

So, cancer does have its benefits.

Sally Edwards, the co-founder of the Danskin Triathlon, world record-setter in the Ironman Triathlon (which I think of as the Seriously Crazy People Triathlon) and author of Triathlons for Women, the book I found really valuable prepping for this, was at both the Survivor breakfast and the expo doing motivational speaking. Again, usually I roll my eyes about some abnormally peppy person trying to motivate me, but I really like her style. When she greeted me at the breakfast, I told her I had her book and she said "Great! Then you’ll get a double high-five at the finish line!" (She’s the woman who gives every wave a send-off at the start line and high-fives every single person at the finish line and then does the run and crosses the finish line last herself, so that none of the women in the race have to worry about being last.)

During the course review, Sally asked us to shout out what scared us most, and most women shouted "the swim!" (I just don’t get that) but the rest of us shouted "the hill!" by which, of course, we all meant Mt. Doom.

Sally nodded and said "the reality is, every year, 80% of you wind up walking up at least part of that hill." Hearing her say that with a "so what" shrug really lifted a weight off my shoulders.

Race Day - Aquachef Revisited

So, Sunday morning arrived. I got up at 0330 to get to the transition area around 0500, when it opened. The parking lot was about half a mile from the transition, but it felt good to walk my bike that distance in the cool darkness and loosen up a little. I set up my equipment zone, by which time it was light, and walked another third of a mile or so to the swim start. The swim was a triangular course in one pocket of lake, which I liked a lot better than in 2004, when we had to swim across a lake.

I ran into Amy, one of the women I’d met at the Team Survivor breakfast the day before. She was super nervous about the swim, even though this is her seventh Danskin. She said she could swim fine in a pool, but in a lake or ocean she can’t put her head in the water because not being able to see the bottom freaks her out. Again, I don’t get it, but I told her I was just glad there would be no chefs in the water and then related my Aquachef saga. This got her laughing so hard she had to remove her goggles and wipe her eyes. She said the whole swim she’d be hearing that distinctive German voice in her head going "Less drag! More extension! Schnell! Schnell!"

I walked in about waist-deep before the race started to test both the temperature and my new open water goggles, which I bought the day before at the expo. They’ve got more suction, enough that when I pull them off I have to close my eyes or if feels like my eyeballs are getting sucked out of my head. The water temp itself was great... upper 70s. The sky was overcast and the threatened thunderstorms never materialized, but it was very foggy, so you couldn’t see even to the first buoy. Of course, I felt like I was in Norway and really dug it.

Thousands of women started lining up in bunches according to waves. The first wave, the elite class athlete, was off and running, or swimming as the case may be, followed by the first-timers from Team Survivor. The waves left every four minutes, and while we were still waiting to go, the elite class athletes were already coming back in and passing us en route to the bike transition.

Once the fifth wave was off, those of us in the sixth wave walked down to the beach and about knee deep into the water, where Sally was waiting with a bullhorn to give us some final words of encouragement. We were supposed to turn to the woman next to us and say "you go, girlfriend!" but, hey, there are some things I just can’t say without gagging, so when Amy said "you go, girlfriend!" to me, I replied "Luck in battle, Amy." She raised one eyebrow and then said "ooh, I like that."

In the final moments before the start, I thought of that scene before the big game in "Dodgeball" (it’s scary how much of my philosophy of life can be summed up in either "The 13th Warrior" or "Dodgeball."), when Peter looks at his rag-tag team and says "I say we go out there, let it all hang loose, have some fun. I mean, it’s only dodgeball."

The starting buzzer rang and we were off, running and then launching ourselves headfirst into the murky, misty lake. It took me a minute or so to find my rhythm, but once I did, I felt really good, very strong and calm and focused. And I passed people!! Sure, a lot of people passed me, but in 2004, the only people I passed were the women having aquatic anxiety attacks. This time I passed swimmers who were merely slower than me, especially at the end when a lot of people who started too fast crapped out.

I really liked the triangular course because it was like swim swim swim ooh! the buoy! I get to turn! swim swim swim ooh! another buoy! I get to turn and there’s the finish line already! In 2004, swimming across a lake was discouraging because I kept waiting for the teeny tiny finish line in the distance to get bigger.

My swim result (from the official race site): 20:00 on the nose. 2004 Swim: 23:28.

Ch-ch-ch-changin’: T1

I had to get a third of a mile from the swim finish line to the transition area and then walk across the whole length and breadth of the transition area to get to my bike. I opted to walk, because I was wearing flip-flops, I was walking on dirt and gravel and really didn’t feel like killing myself to shave off a couple seconds. So my first transition, T1 in tri-speak, was crazy long, but that was ok. I washed off my feet, put on my socks and cycling shoes, drank some water and had a Power Bar Gel with Caffeine! Yes! power athlete goo with as much caffeine as a cup of coffee! I highly recommend it.

T1 time: 6:16 2004 T1 time: 6:55

I Go To Meet My Doom

I walked Cerdic to the bike start, through the gate and to the "Mount Area" where you have to get before you can actually get on the bike for safety reasons. Then I started pedaling. Buying a pair of cycling shoes while I was visiting Down South was the smartest thing I did for this triathlon; the stiff sole transfers the power so much more effectively. Technically I’m supposed to clip the shoes into special pedals like ski boots clip into skis, but I haven’t upgraded to the pedals yet. It’s not the expense... it’s the fear. I am so unsteady and uncertain on a bike that the last thing I want to do is chain myself to it. And they say you can unclip easily if you start to fall, but I don’t believe them.

Case in point: about four miles into the bike course, just at the start of the hills, a woman beside me with the clip pedals said "oh dear. Oh dear. OH DEAR" and just like that tipped over and landed on the side of the road in a bed of vegetation, having lost her balance without being able to unclip herself fast enough. She said she was ok so I kept going.

Anyway, on the bike course, I got excited because, again for the first time, I was passing people! Last time I was so awful on the bike that every single person passed me and I was the next-to-last to finish, time-wise. This time I was still slow, but not as slow as several people. Whoo hoo!

I did okay on the first and last bunch of hills, but I did wind up walking part of Mt. Doom, probably about a half-mile total (the entire hill, up and down, is about two miles). When I got to the point where I was moving forward on the bike slower than if I got off and walked, well, that’s when I decided to get off and walk, at least until it flattened out a little in the middle. When it got steep again, I got off again, then pushed myself to do the summit on the bike.

Waiting for us at the summit was the local cycling club, about two dozen uberfit young guys in their teeny tiny shorty-shorts with their skinny yet freakishly muscular legs and teeny tiny butts and pec-hugging jerseys. And every one of them was shouting "Great job!" "You did it, you’re at the top!" "It’s all downhill from here!" "You rock!" and other warm and fuzzy sentiments. I found that especially heart-warming, since they’re probably the same Lance Armstrong wannabes that crowd up the road and irk me when I’m trying to get somewhere on a Saturday morning.

In addition to the cycling club, which really did make me feel all warm and gooshy inside, dozens of people who just lived along the route were out with signs and cowbells and whistles cheering us on. My favorite was a little girl, probably about four or five, standing on the side of the road with a very serious, even somber expression, silently holding up both her thumbs.

After reaching the summit of Mt. Doom, I faced my second-biggest worry: the Mt. Doom downhill. It’s as steep going down as coming up, and the road on the downhill really needs to be resurfaced. Cerdic crested the hill and just broke loose. I was going so fast I could feel the back wheel starting to lift, the prelude to a crash, and the bumps and potholes I was hitting didn’t help.

As it happened, I was about 20 feet behind a woman who clearly knew what she was doing. She was also shouting "pothole on left!" and "bump!" and picking the best line between all the road hazards. So I just kept behind her, looked at her rear wheel, scooted my butt back so it was hanging a little off the back of the bike (how mountain bikers keep from flipping on a steep downhill, or so I’ve read) and just road my brakes the whole way down, aware of nothing except following her and trying not to crash.

Later on, at the finish line, we heard that there had been a crash in that area, with at least one woman apparently breaking her arm. I’m not surprised.

At the base of Mt. Doom, there was a sharp right which I actually handled better than I’d feared. From there it was gently rolling hills and then a long flat section for the last couple miles. I passed people. People passed me. It’s all good.

Bike result (including walking half a mile!): 01:01:38 2004 Bike result: (on a course that was, like my singing, totally flat!) 01:10:55

Time to be A-Changin’ Again: T2

As I came in to the transition area to get ready for the run, a man standing on the non-athlete side of the fencing was screaming to some woman. She was just getting back from her bike segment, and he was shrieking "53 minutes! 53 minutes, Claire! You’re on fire! That’s like 15 miles an hour! You’re incredible!"

I remembered reading in some training book I’d picked up at one point that going 24 miles an hour is "very slow." I don’t think the author of that book would be at all impressed with Claire’s 15 miles an hour, but I just smiled and thought how cool. Good for Claire.

I racked Cerdic, took off my cycling shoes, laced up my Saucony Hurricanes, put on my running jersey with number, removed my biking helmet (almost forgot to do so, derrrrrr...), had another caffeinated power gel, water and a sports drink. Then I was off... walking to the run start.

T2 Time: 2:15 2004 T2 Time: 5:51

Walkin’ with the Devil

Yeah, I walked almost all of the 5K "run" segment. It was part of my strategy, for several reasons. One, running on pavement makes my knees and hips hurt, and the last thing I wanted to do was stress my joints and then sit in a car for three hours. Two, I knew that as of this morning I would be back in the bakeshop, and that my assignment for this class was to be a food steward, one of the lucky people who gets to show up early, go to the storeroom and haul 50-pound bags of flour and sugar and whatnot back to the classroom. Not a good time to be sore, and a worse time to be injured. And finally - and guys, especially squeamish guys, just skip the rest of this paragraph - my period arrived a few days early on race day, just to screw with me. I don’t know about the rest of you, ladies, but nothing makes me feel less athletic than the wonderful combination of water retention, cramps and blood loss-induced anemia.

So yeah, I walked.

I walked briskly, but no pounding of the pavement for me. I conserved my energy and then, in the final 100 yards, I sprinted. I didn’t even break a sweat as I smiled for the finish line cameras. Sally Edwards was there, giving women high fives as they crossed the line. To my surprise, she turned fully toward me and gave me a double high-five. I don’t know if it was chance, or if she actually remembered promising to do that, but I thought that was pretty cool, too.

"Run" result: 39:57 2004 run result (when I actually tried to run most of it!): 43:35

After the finish line, I had a free banana and made a circuit of vendors to collect a few more free things (two more water bottles!), then packed up my stuff and walked Cerdic back to the car. As Gordon Ramsay says on "The F Word": Second triathlon. Done.

Total time: 2:10:09 2004 Total time: 2:30:36

And Finally, The Pitch

Ok, so if you’ve read this far, you’ve probably done so either because you’re a really good friend, my mom, or because you found it riveting. And I want to say one thing: do it. If you’re a chick (sorry, no boys allowed), sign up for a Danskin Triathlon. And if you find yourself saying "oh no, I could never do one," then you have to do it. I command it. Because I can’t say enough about what a great experience it is. It’s not for athletes, though athletes do compete. When you’re out there, you see women of all ages, women well over 300 pounds, women who are going through chemo or who’ve just had surgery. You see grandmas and teenagers and women with limps and women with more cellulite than you may have thought humanly possible. And they’re out there, in their shorty-shorts and swimsuits and no one is saying nasty things or making faces at them. Everyone is super encouraging, and there’s no elbowing or jostling or any of the antics you hear about in most competitive sports (I doubt there’s any blood-doping, either). Women are out there doing it to prove to themselves they can, and it’s a beautiful thing.

So please, I don’t like to beg, and I usually don’t try to talk people into something, but if you’re a chick and you’re reading this, get off your ass and sign up for the next Danskin Triathlon in your area. You’ll thank me.
Now, thank you for reading.