My swim, much like 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,' is disappointing and runs way too long.

Take today’s workout for example. Teresa persuaded me to do the “postal swim,” which is an hour-long time trial. The rule is simple: see how far you can swim in 60 minutes. She pestered me via email and asked if I was going to sign up, and I sighed and responded with, “I don’t really want to do it, but I will if you think it’ll be good for me.” By the time I stopped dragging my feet and committed to doing the workout, there were only a couple slots left. Teresa cheerfully jammed me into the first of three waves. Wave #1 started at 7 am. On a Sunday. FML.

As if getting up at the ass crack of dawn on a Sunday morning for a bullshit swim workout wasn’t bad enough, I scanned the list of folks who were swimming in Wave #1 and realized that I was woefully outpaced among my fellow teammates. All of the fast assholes on my team were swimming at 7 am. I needed to be in Wave #3, which started at 9:30…or Teresa needed to make a separate “slowest of the slow” wave that started at noon and consisted of me and a no armed, one legged drifter named Hobo Joe.

Also making the swim worse was the fact that I was out of town this past week for work, so my weekend workouts were especially heavy duty to make up for my travel time. I spent the weekdays in Denver before flying home and forcing myself to do a swim workout on Friday. My swim wasn’t great, which gave me a glimmer of hope that, by the Law of Transitive Beccas, my Sunday swim would be better. On Saturday I had a “Welcome back to Ironman training you lazy bastard” workout that consisted of 3×1 hour bike intervals with a 15 minute brick run after each set. By the end of my 3:45 workout, I was exhausted, my legs were aching, and I was dreading the early morning swim that would end my weekend.

This morning I woke up at a soul-crushingly early 5:30 am and puttered around as nervous as I would be if it were an actual race. I was irrationally anxious and agonized over what to eat for breakfast. I even sucked down a cup of coffee, something I only do on race mornings. Jason and I hopped into the car (he didn’t want to do the postal swim either, but I nagged him into Band of Brothers-ing it with me) and drove over to Mercer Island. It was stupid and dark outside–as in “dark enough that I should still be in bed instead of driving to a turdtastic swim workout.” The island has no streetlights and the pool center was dark too, resulting in a supremely paranoid left turn into the parking lot since I was worried about missing the driveway and careening down an embankment (which, admittedly, still would have been better than swimming nonstop for an hour).

We entered the facility and made our way down to the pool. It was actually a 25 meter pool, so it was a smidge longer than the typical 25-yarder I was used to. I hopped in and busted out a half-ass 100 meter warm up, then we all began the time trial. My lane partner named Jeanne immediately began kicking my ass, lapping me like I was treading water and busting out flip turns like a boss. I sighed and puttered along, keeping a steady pace.

It was a bit tedious and difficult to concentrate on perfect form (which I don’t have, anyway) for an entire hour, so I let my mind wander towards the following:

• The nasty band-aid that was floating beneath me for about 20 minutes (eventually it made its way over to the lane next to me and kept Derek and Karissa company).
• How much phlegm I accumulated the longer I swim. At around the 30 minute mark I had a string of drool hanging from my mouth for about 100 meters before it finally broke off and presumably floated over to hang out with the band-aid in the Corner of Gross.
• Getting half-drowned every 10 minutes whenever Derek and I would briefly end up side by side (I say “briefly” because that bastard is an astoundingly fast swimmer) and his massive, manly wake would push into me and make me gurgle and partially choke on chlorine, band-aid juice, and errant loogies.

By the time the clock finally ticked down to its last seconds, I was halfway done with a length and finished at the deck end of the pool at around 1:00:25. I looked up and saw that the crowd had grown from about five teammates who were counting everyone’s laps to around 30 people who were waiting for their wave to start. The sudden audience made me feel a bit sheepish in a “Oh hey guys, how long have you been standing there? I was just taking ‘er easy for that last 10 minutes…oh, you’ve been here for 20? I meant 20. I did a 20 minute cooldown. I’m not normally this slow…” sort of way.

I hopped out of the pool, and Addy, my lap counter, looked up from his seat to give me my distance.

Addy: “2325.”

Me: “What?! I was between 25 and 50 when time ran out!”

Addy, helpfully: “Well, I wrote down ‘2325+.’”

Me, sulking: “Well I’m going to round up to 2350.”

Addy, rolling his eyes: “Whatever.”

Me, embarrassed: “…I need all the distance I can get.”

Teresa told me to shoot for 2400-2600 and Jason the Overbearing Boyfriend said I could do 2800. I did neither of those. In fact, if you calculate my pace for a half and full Ironman distance, I swam slower today than last year’s Rev 3 swim time and my Ironman Canada swim time. How nice to see that my swim times are getting progressively worse the longer I do this sport. I guess you could blame my sluggishness on the fact that my legs were dead from the previous day’s workout, but Jason had a 5 hour interval workout and he busted out a great swim time, so I can’t even really make that excuse. I guess I just suck, plain and simple.

I’m starting to get desperate here–at this point I’m actually entertaining the notion of joining a master’s swim class or two. Sure, I’ll get humiliated a couple nights a week, but at least I’ll have someone who can keep an eye on my swim form and yell at me whenever I do something wrong (which would be every 15 seconds). I’ve been better about hitting my swim workouts lately but I’m still not seeing consistent gains. How much do I need to be swimming each week to improve? And will this improvement be anything substantial, or will I basically negate any gains I make this August at IMC if I end up needing to take a three minute bathroom break in T2? Do I truly have the potential to get substantially better at swimming, or will I always be weak at it no matter how hard I work? I’m not whining here, just genuinely clueless about what it takes to improve my swimming. Maybe I need to harvest Michael Phelps’ tears or something…

I checked my workout schedule and saw that Teresa assigned me a 2,000 yd swim or the option of swimming with the group at Greenlake. I wasn’t thrilled with either choice, but no matter how many times I closed my eyes and opened them, expecting the workout to change to “Eat a cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake — hard effort!”, the stupid swim workout never went away.

Jason, being the annoying training partner that he is, was all “Herp derp let’s go to the group swim!” I wasn’t crapping myself with glee at the thought of yanking on my wetsuit and trudging into water that was marginally warmer (56 degrees) than the air temperature (54 degrees), but I figured I’d have to get in the lake eventually, and since I want to improve my swimming, it’s a necessary evil.

It was raining when we arrived at Greenlake, and my teammates and I made futile attempts to shield our dry clothes from the precipitation. I pulled on my wetsuit and, anticipating how cold the water was, yanked on a thermal swimcap in addition to a regular cap. The water didn’t feel quite as cold as I thought it would be, but it was still a bit of a shock to the system.

Jas and I took off with our friends Brent and Jes. I made my way to the second orange buoy from the shore, huffing and puffing the entire way and stopping a couple times to catch my breath. By the time I made it to the buoy, it felt like I had been swimming forever. I looked at my watch. Three minutes and nine seconds. Son of a bitch.

Jason and Brent opted to swim across the lake and do the full mile, but since my first open water swim of the season is always spectacularly awful, I headed back to shore with Jes. It felt hard to breathe, like the chin strap from the thermal cap was restricting me. We went out to the buoy again, and when I got there I flagged down Thomas and his son, who were in a canoe keeping an eye on those of us who were foolish enough to be swimming that day.

Me: “Can I give you my thermal cap?”

Thomas, joking: “Man, you’re that warm?”

I yanked off my goggles, then my regular swim cap, then my thermal cap and handed it over to him. His son, meanwhile, offered some tough love to Jes.

Declan: “Want a swim noodle?”

Jes, politely: “Uh, sure!”

Declan handed her the noodle, then said in a grave tone, “You have to give it back,” as if Jes figured he was gifting it to her permanently. We all laughed and they paddled away. I felt better not having the too-tight thermal cap choking me (although, weirdly enough, I swam with it fine when I raced Boise last year; I know I’ve gained weight since last season, but I didn’t think it was all chin weight).

Then I realized something: it’s pretty damn difficult to put on a swim cap when treading in deep water. I was kicking my legs to stay afloat and attempting to yank the cap on with two hands, but my frantic efforts were unsuccessful. I looked so pathetic and useless that Jes, having taken pity on the sorry, sad sight before her, asked, “Want me to hold you?” I nodded like a little kid who had just been offered a lollipop if he’ll stop crying. She got behind me and stabilized me by holding my hips with each hand.

Then poor Jes realized that she was having problems staying afloat because now both of her arms were occupied. She warned me that I had about “ten seconds” before she was going to drop me and I’d plunge down the murky, pee-filled depths of Greenlake. Feeling the 24-like urgency, I yanked down once, twice, thrice before my fourth spazzy attempt was successful. Sure, most of my hair was hanging out the back like some sort of unfortunate swimmer’s mullet, but at least my cap was back in its rightful place.

We swam back to shore, my swim confidence officially obliterated. I checked my watch to see how long my epic return to open water swimming had lasted. A whopping fifteen minutes, during which I successfully managed to swallow a hearty mouthful of Greenlake’s finest. As I got out to try and salvage my once-dry clothes that were now soggy and rain-soaked, the wind picked up and it started pouring. The rain turned to hail, and we all waddle-ran to our cars, our wetsuits half-undone and our wet clothes bundled up in our arms. This swim, like all of my first open water swims of the year, was a big fat failure. Here’s hoping the next one isn’t quite so gloriously terrible.

I woke up at 5:30 am and de-groggied as best I could before meeting my swim group at Madison beach at 6:15. The previous several days had been very warm and sunny in Seattle, so naturally the morning of the swim was gray, windy, and chilly. The Weather Gods seriously hate me. When we drove across 520 towards the swim start, we could see the wind whipping the water up against the floating bridge. Of course. The first time I do this stupid race, Lake Washington decides to release the Kraken and try to drown me. This is why I hate swimming.

We arrived at Medina and picked up our packets, then watched the wind swirl the chop up so it was nice and terrifying. Docks were swinging, swimmers were chattering and shivering, and I stared across the lake convinced that the shoreline across from me was getting further and further away.

Me looking like a paunchy old Asian man asking Sara if we really need to do this

There were four waves of swimmers distinguished by their swim caps: Fast, Less Fast, Respectable, and You Swim Like a Toddler with Raptor Arms (also known as the Pink wave). Naturally, Teresa stuck me in the slow wave because she wasn’t certain I’d even be out of the water by the time Ironman Canada started.

Slow in the water, but fast and fierce eaters

The event itself started at 7:30, but since I was going last I got to watch a multitude of athletes crawl into the water and promptly get bitch-slapped by the waves. I killed time by trying to look bad-ass in my wetsuit that gives me the illusion of having muscle definition:

It didn't work

Eventually it was our turn to climb into Lake Washingmachine. I lucked out since I breathe to my right and the chop was coming from the left, but that was the extent of my good fortune. The first half hour or so went decently — I swam fairly well with my group and sighted off our kayaker since I couldn’t see anything remotely sightable on the other side of the lake.

Soon enough, however, I stopped thinking, “Hey, this isn’t so bad” and returned to my regularly scheduled “I hate this shit, this sucks so hard” mindset. I thought about how warm and cozy Jason was still sleeping in bed (all you have to do to get out of Swim for Life is launch yourself 30 feet off your bike) and cursed Teresa for encouraging me to do this. (I tend to curse her a lot when it comes to swimming-related activities. When will the day come where I curse her for buying me a giant delicious cake?)

To make matters worse, the chop kicked up and I’d often find myself plunging my left hand into air as a wave would pick me up and toss me around like a rag doll. Even breathing to the right didn’t help much after a while — there’d be rotations where I’d try to breathe and end up catching a flood of water. Even worse than that was the fact that the kayak seemed to instantly disappear, leaving me with nothing to sight off. I’d look up and see the kayak, swim three strokes, and then look up again and see that the stupid thing had drifted like a mile away. I was still too far away from the shore to be able to see the condos prominently, so I just gave up and swam in a general direction, hoping for the best.

At one point I popped up to see where I was at, and while I was dutifully estimating how much further I needed to go, some kayaker from another group ran right into me. He apologized a million times while I tried not to get pulled underneath him. I just sighed, shoved away from the kayak, and resumed swimming. This swim was the suck.

After what seemed like several hours, two things happened: first, I finally spotted shore and was able to make out both the condo landmark and a bunch of people on the beach. Secondly, out of nowhere I started craving an English muffin with peanut butter on it. Fueled by ravenous hunger and the overwhelming desire to get the hell out of the water, I pushed on.

Unfortunately, simply spotting the beach didn’t insta-warp me to shore. I swear that from the time I spotted the crowd of swimmers who had finished the swim to the time I actually got there, I mysteriously swam an extra 4 miles despite the fact that the distance was only 2.5. It took FOREVER. I was so frustrated that I wouldn’t exhale in the water so much as force the air out of my lungs with a guttural scream.

I never felt so happy to hit the milfoil that grows close to shore. That tangly feathered nastiness was such a relief, and I dragged my frustrated, half-drowned ass onto the sandy beach. I took roughly two steps ashore before someone sneak-took my photo, paparazzi-style. I have no recollection of this whatsoever:

What Batman would look like if he were more Asian and could barely swim

I ran into Kirsten, my swimming buddy, who had also just finished. As I followed her to retrieve our gear bags from the kayak, I stopped to hoark a giant phlemmy loog in a horrifically un-feminine way. Kirsten smiled politely as I bashfully muttered something about how swimming makes me mucousy. I hung around long enough to steal a giant apple, then ducked out so I could go home and tell Jason how he missed such a joyous swim.

After the race, I received an email from the Swim for Life organizer that started off with this gem:

“In the middle of the night, five hours before the start of this year’s swim, the floating dock at Medina was rocking so violently in 40 mph wind that its two ends alternated being completely and loudly submerged. Not surprisingly, even though the wind had abated a bit by 7:30 AM, we still had our choppiest swim in 13 years and had more swimmers than usual requesting to get pulled from the water.”

My swim time was about 10 minutes slower than where I wanted it to be, but considering the conditions, I guess I didn’t do too bad. Hopefully things will go more smoothly in Canada — I guess if I can swim 2 1/2 miles in rough, ugly chop, I should be able to bust out 2.4 in a much calmer lake while drafting behind hundreds of athletes.

Prologue
The half Ironman was on a Saturday and boasted a point-to-point bike course (meaning two transition areas instead of one) and a 2 pm start. On paper that sounded awesome — you got to sleep in instead of getting up at butt crack of dawn o’clock, and you could get a proper meal instead of choking down oatmeal. Huzzah! I put off signing up until the week of the race because I had been having knee problems lately and wanted to make sure my body felt healthy before shelling out a couple hundred dollars for the race. Unfortunately for me, they closed online registration the week of the race so I had to sign up in person.

Traveling to the Race
Jason and I loaded up the Subee, strapped our bikes onto the hitch and drove the 8 excruciatingly boring hour drive through eastern Washington, most of Oregon and into Boise. The drive pretty much consisted of the following:

• brown nothingness
• brown nothingness
• brown nothingness
• ridiculous thunderstorm
• brown nothingness

Pre-Race Preparations
We finally got to Boise, and the next day Jason and I headed to the Expo Center to pick up our registration packet. I had to sign up in person and was forced to bequeath my unborn child over to the Ironman brand (Jesus Christ, race-day sign up is so freakin’ expensive). I also decided to rent race day wheels to see what they were like. They were kind of pricey but still tons cheaper than buying a set of race wheels (which can cost $2,000 and up).

Check out those sexy race wheels

After Jason and I finished up at the Expo Hall, we drove over to the swim start so we could drop off our bikes at T1. After a test bike ride, we got in the water for a 10 minute swim, and holy hell was that water cold. I flailed around for a couple meters before running into a group of idiot kids who thought it was a good idea to take a dip in the sub-60 degree water in bikinis and swim trunks. I had the following conversation with one of them:

Him: “Are you still cold even in your scuba suit?”
Me: “Yeah, this water is pretty cold.”
Him: “I’m freezing! How much did your scuba suit cost?”
Me: “It’s not a scuba suit, it’s a wetsuit.”
Him: “Oh…how much did your wetsuit cost?”
Me: “$650.”
Him: “Really? I only have $5…how much does it cost to rent a wetsuit?”

At that point I was thinking, “Screw you, junior, I’m not lending you my suit,” so I swam off and finished my miserable workout.

Race Day
The next morning we woke up and went downstairs to eat breakfast in the hotel’s dining area. I grabbed a bowl of cereal but upon looking down at it, I felt a sudden wave of nausea overtake me so I only managed to poke at it with my spoon and not eat anything. When we got back to our room I promptly threw up. Twenty minutes later I yakked again, barfing up water and foamy stomachy goodness. Jason looked at me with a mixture of empathy and disgust, asking if I was feeling okay and if I should race. I called Teresa for advice.

Teresa: “Was it something you ate the night before? Do you think it’s food poisoning?”
Me: “I don’t think so. If it were, I would have been sick last night.”
Teresa: “Yeah…do you think it’s nerves?”
Me: “Maybe. I’ve never had this happen before.”
Teresa: “Hmmm…you’re not pregnant, are you?”
Me: “Dear God, I hope not.”

(I’m not.)

I eventually managed to stop barfing and was able to choke down a protein bar. We got our stuff packed up and Jason’s parents took us to the IHOP for a pre-race meal. I ordered whole wheat pancakes but had no appetite and couldn’t eat any of them. Feeling miserable, I looked over at Jason and saw him with his head in his hands, looking exactly how I felt at that moment. We were jittery, stressed, and unable to eat.

After lunch, Jason’s parents started driving us to T1. Ten minutes into our drive, I realized that I had taken the computer off my bike the night before and had accidentally left it in my hotel room. I started to panic, thinking about how I needed my computer to check my cadence and ensure that I was keeping between 85-100 rpms, and that if I didn’t know how fast I was going I was gonna go insane. Jason’s parents said they’d go back and grab it for me and would try to pass it off to me when I got out of the swim.

I was already stressed about having puked twice and forgetting my bike computer when we decided to add “getting lost on the way to the race” to the mix. Since a ton of roads were closed because of the race, we had to take this ridiculous detour to get to T1. We finally got there, only to get yelled at by race officials that we weren’t allowed to get dropped off at the top of the hill where T1 was. Jason’s parents had to drive us all the way down to the bottom of the hill and drop us off at a park that was about 3/4 of a mile away from where we needed to be. I started walking up the hill with two armloads of gear, my heart pounding from the nerves, when I heard a far-off voice announce, “The transition area will close in FIVE minutes.” At that point I thought I was going to pass out from the stress.

Thankfully, Jason’s sister caught up to me and offered to serve as my gear mule, helping me carry some of my stuff up the hill with me. I got to the start and got marked in record time, then ran over to my bike and frantically began setting up my transition area and shoving anything remotely edible into my bento box. The entire time I was rushing and getting yelled at to exit T1, I kept thinking over and over how bullshit a 2 pm race start and two separate transition areas were.

Swim Summary
The race started but my wave wasn’t going for another 45 minutes, so I sat around and had the distinct pleasure of watching the waves get choppier and choppier due to the increasing winds and ever-darkening sky. By the time my wave rolled around, the reservoir looked like a washing machine on spin cycle.

Before it got choppy as hell, the water didn't seem so bad

Finally, we were off. Waves were hitting me from the right, which is the side I breathe from, so I immediately cursed myself for not following Teresa’s training instructions and practicing bilateral breathing more often. The swim was by far the roughest I had ever done — not only were there ridiculous waves and wind to deal with, but people were running into each other and throwing elbows left and right.

I managed to get to the first turn buoy relatively “quickly,” but it seemed to take eons to get to the second turn point. I later found out that it was so windy that the turn buoys were drifting further and further out, and the race volunteers were telling some swimmers to just forgo the big buoys to save time (they didn’t tell me this — effers!). I swam and swam and swam, and finally I dragged my half-drowned ass out of the water, having swam probably about .2-.3 miles more than intended.

Goal time: under 50 minutes
Actual time: 57 minutes (wind + waves + drifting buoys = terrible swim time, though I’m pretty sure I actually swam closer to 1.5 miles instead of 1.2)

T1
My T1 wasn’t actually that bad — I managed to bust out a 2:34 even after waddling over to Jason’s sister with my speedplay cleats to grab my bike computer from her and tap dancing the length of the transition area to the bike mounting spot. (I really need to learn how to hop on and off the bike with my shoes already clipped in — these thick bike cleats are killing my mobility.) I hopped on my bike, put the atrocious swim behind me, and started pedaling.

Bike Summary
Less than three miles into the 56 mile bike it started to rain. Hard. Really hard. Then it turned into a thunderstorm. Then it started to hail. I was a shivering, snotty mess. Every ten minutes I had to wipe snot from my face onto my tri shorts. My bike was soaked and sticky, and I battled slick roads, pelting rain and hail, and unforgiving headwinds the entire miserable ride. By the end of it my crotch and back were screaming at me to stop and I was actually looking forward to seeing downtown Boise. (I never thought that would happen.)

I was probably about a half mile away from T2 and pedaling as hard as I could when I saw a tiny squirrel shoot across the street. It let out a ridiculous squealing noise right when I got to it as if it anticipated its inevitable demise, but somehow the little bastard managed to escape death by race wheel squishing and barely got out of the way as I barreled down the street. Stunned, I uttered a loud “HOLY SHIT” and the person biking behind me started laughing really hard. (This is not the first time I’ve encountered a creature while racing or training — one time a furry black critter ran across my feet during a half marathon, and during a training ride I almost got hit in the face by a bat. I must give off some sort of pheromone.)

I finally got to T2 and breathed a sigh of relief. Now all I had to do was finish the run and I’d be done with this bullshit race.

Goal time: 3:00 to 3:10
Actual time: 3:19 (Slower than I wanted, but what can you expect when you’re biking through a goddamn thunderstorm. The bike course itself was relatively flat, so I imagine I’d post a better time in less inclement weather.)

Dropping off my snot-coated bike at T2

T2 and Run Summary
I busted through T2 in 2:17 and started the run. I packed socks in case I wanted to wear them for the run, but I’ve raced sockless before and haven’t had any issues, plus everything in my transition area was soaking wet so I figured socks wouldn’t help, anyway, so I ran out with naked feet. The first couple miles felt pretty good, and I was keeping a steady pace through the giant puddles with my wet feet and shoes. At mile 3 my shoes started to rub my feet in certain areas and my feet started to sting a bit. Each mile after that got worse and worse. I knew I had formed blisters and that they had probably already popped from the constant rubbing. Every step started to hurt more and more, and my run deteriorated to a Hillary Biscay-like gait (only much, much slower).

At mile 5 I stopped at a tree and took my right shoe off to assess the damage. To my surprise, the outer rim of my shoe was covered in blood and my foot was rubbed completely raw in two spots. I sighed, put my shoe back on, and limp-ran to the end of lap one. A volunteer was standing between the split (where you either run ahead and finish the race or turn to the right and begin your second 6.5 mile lap), and he shouted at me, “Great job, keep it up!” I stopped when I got to him and said, “I need medical.”

His smile faded and he said, “Okay, okay, we can get you medical attention. What’s the problem?” I told him that my feet were bleeding. He looked down, saw my bloody shoes, and said, “Yeah…um, I have band-aids. Will those help?” I said sure and he started fishing them out of his pack. Then he looked at me and said, “Do you want to drop out of the race?”

I kind of blinked and looked at him like I didn’t quite comprehend what he was saying. I survived a near drowning, rode a miserable 56 miles in the pouring rain, and just hobble-ran halfway through the run. All I had left was one more lap. Why the fuck would I quit now? I muttered a “No, I should be fine thanks byeeeeeeeeee” and ran off to begin my second lap.

The band-aids actually did help immensely for a few miles, and I was able to temporarily forget about the stinging pain and focus on running. My optimism was short-lived, however, and I Robo-Cop’d the last couple miles with a single driving force: medical. Unlike Thomas the Tank Engine’s mantra of “I think I can, I think I can,” the only word that repeated in my mind over and over again was “Medical. Medical. Medical. Medical.”

I finally lurched across the finish line, got draped with a space blanket and was forced to pose for a stupid finisher’s photo before a volunteer guided me over to the medical area.

Goal time: 2:00 to 2:05
Actual time: 2:17 (I hobble-ran a 10:30 pace, which isn’t too bad considering the state of my feet)

Time for Medical Attention
Jason caught up with me and gave an encouraging “Good job!”, then grew concerned when I told him that I wanted to hit up the medical area ASAP. I assured him that I wasn’t suffering from cramping or dehydration and just pointed down at my feet, at which point his mom uttered an “Ohmygod.” (I felt pretty bad-ass for eliciting such a reaction.)

We headed into medical and a volunteer came up to me and asked if I’d been helped yet. I said “No,” and she asked what the problem was. I pointed down at my feet and she went “Ewwww…by the way, I’m not a doctor, but I’ll get one for you.” I laughed and told her that I figured that either she was just a volunteer or she was a doctor with the world’s worst bedside manner.

Jason's sister's rendition of the medical area (where it was "athletes only")

The doctor/medical dude cleaned my feet with saline solution, burned the hell out of them with some sort of devil’s liquid, smeared some ointment on them and wrapped them in blue bandages.

It's a good look for me

My bloody shoes (the inserts are pink Superfeet, not bloody soles)

Bloody right shoe (the worse of the two)

After the Race
The funny thing about the 2 pm start time is that the race organizers wanted the finish in downtown Boise so the athletes could enjoy a “post-race party” downtown and eat, drink and hang out. This is a good idea in theory, but since the weather was apocalyptically bad, everyone finished the race and immediately began packing up their stuff to get the hell out of there and change into some dry clothes. Jason and I were no exception. I returned my race wheels and we gathered up our gear and headed back to the hotel (after making a stop at Wendy’s, of course).

Once I finished inhaling my burger, I stepped into the shower and serenaded Jason with a lovely slew of expletives and “MOTHER OF GOD”s as the hot shower water hit my raw feet and stung the shit out of them. We changed and headed over to Teresa and Mark’s hotel to hang out with them, drink, and, of course, scarf down more food. Naturally, Teresa had a kick-ass race and not only took 1st in her age group but was the first amateur female. She’s a mighty good triathlete. Mark also PR’d and did a sub-5 hour race, and Jason PR’d by 40 minutes and finished in under 6 hours. I, of course, brought up the rear and posted the slowest time in our group.

Goal time: low 6 hours
Actual time: 6:38

I’m pretty disappointed with my finish time. I really wanted to get 6:00 to 6:15, with the ultimate goal of hitting under 6 hours. I still managed to PR by about 20 minutes, but I think I could have done up to 30 minutes better if the weather were less ridiculous and if my feet weren’t bleeding. Oh well.

Final Thoughts
All in all, I think that Boise is a potentially good race that turned out pretty shitty for the following reasons:

1. The 2 pm start time. Like I said, a later start time is good on paper, but 2 pm is too late. I wouldn’t mind a race with a 10 am or a noon start time at the absolute latest, but when you start at 2 you have too much time to sit around and get stressed out and worry about everything that can possibly go wrong.
2. The two transition areas. Two transition areas is a pain in the ass. You have to run around the day before and make sure all your bags are properly packed and drop them off in different areas, and when you’re racing you have to make sure you don’t leave anything out or it’ll end up getting left behind. Also, Teresa learned the hard way that you can’t trust the organizers with your various bags of gear when she realized that someone had stolen her ring out of her bag. That’s pretty shitty.
3. The freakin’ weather. The Boise website summarized the day as such: “Participating athletes saw light rain for a majority of the bike and run course, with temperatures hovering in the low 70s.” That’s the most ridiculous euphemism for “torrential thunderstorm and 60 degree temperatures” I’ve ever seen. Granted, apparently Boise averages an inch of rain the entire month of June so it seems like we just had bad luck this year, but still, don’t frickin’ lie about how terrible it was.

I’d probably still do Boise again in the future, but only if they move the start time back to the morning. I can probably put up with the separate transitions and there’s a strong chance the weather has to be better than it was this year, but in my opinion the late start time was a failed experiment. I can’t say I had fun doing the race this year, but at least I learned a lot and can show off my war wounds to everyone.

Cut #1

Cut #2

Cut #3

Cut #4

I’ll probably try and do another 70.3 later this summer as a redemption race. Hopefully it’ll go better than Boise did. :)

Artist's rendition of me and Jason at the finish since we didn't get a picture together (I loved medical attention more than my boyfriend that day)

I’m pretty sure our first swim was only 1200 meters, but somehow we managed to drag the ordeal out for almost an hour. In hindsight, I appreciate the fact that the lifeguards were able to keep their laughter to themselves. We both swam with our heads almost entirely out of the water, feet dragging under the surface, gasping for air with every single stroke. It was an exhausting ordeal, and quickly became apparent that we should probably seek out some guidance and try to hone our technique prior to our first race.

Over the next twelve weeks we participated in a triathlon swim training class at the Seattle Athletic Club that helped provide us with some basic technique, and took us from being humiliatingly awful swimmers to just being competently poor. During that time we practiced sighting, breath control, and even some simulated group starts. So, as we continued to practice my confidence slowly grew.

Here’s where it’s important to note the two distinctly different approaches Rebecca and I take with regard to our training. Where she tends to be extremely hard on herself and constantly question whether or not she is going to be able to accomplish something, I typically inflate myself into believing that if someone else can do it then so can I. As a result, in the weeks leading up to the race she had wisely decided to get in a couple of open water swims with our training group while I had come up with some excuses and quickly rationalized that “swimming is swimming.”

Fast forward to the day of my first race, the Issaquah Sprint Triathlon. We arrive at the race with plenty of time to setup our transition area. Rebecca and I were both fairly nervous because it was our first race, and I was suddenly becoming concerned about the fact that despite all of the in-pool training, I hadn’t done a single open water swim. However, after surveying the 400 meter course I was able to calm myself by talking through how ludicrously close each of the buoys looked to the shore. “400 meters is nothing,” I told myself. “I can do this in my sleep, open water or not.”

I confidently made my way into the water and prepared for my age group’s start. The gun goes off and I am swimming like I’m in the anchor leg of a 50 meter relay. It’s an all out effort the likes of which I’ve never put forth and I’m in the middle of a strong pack. Unfortunately, amidst my race day excitement and foolish bravado I’ve forgotten that I am NOT a very strong swimmer, and as my lungs begin to give out a sense of panic starts to set in. “What the hell was I thinking?” Now not only am I getting run over by everyone smart enough to go out at a sustainable pace, but I am also one-hundred-percent convinced I’m going to die before I round the first buoy. Somehow I manage to talk myself out of waving frantically for the nearest kayak and calling my first outing a “valiant effort,” and instead awkwardly paddle forward in a modified head above water crawl stroke so terrible looking that a kayaker still stops to ask me “are you okay?”

As I round the first buoy, probably not more than 50 meters in, I’m relieved to find that miraculously there are still a few people behind me. I now settle in for the long stretch parallel to the shore and decide that in order to regain my breath I am going to do the backstroke for a minute or two. So, for the next couple of minutes I transform into one of those zig-zagging d-bags that are almost universally despised (and that I would grow to hate in later races). I settle into a comfortable pace and am congratulating myself on not only regaining my composure but on almost being done with the swim when I hear some guy shouting “Hey!” Not wanting to ruin my flow by looking around I continue undeterred. But, upon hearing a second and much louder shout just a few seconds later I decide to see what is going on. I stop for a second to give an irritated look at the kayaker that has been trying to disrupt my mojo and notice he’s pointing in a totally different direction. Somehow in my swimmin’ groove I’d failed to sight the buoy and was now about 50 meters off course. Ugh.

So, I decide to bag the whole backstroke idea and go back to a more sensibly paced crawl for the remainder of the swim. The rest of the swim is pretty much a blur, as my internal voice kept wavering between a frustrated “I am such an idiot” and the more inquisitive “how could I be so stupid?” After what seemed like hours, but was actually a little under 12 minutes (still pathetic, I know), I emerged from the water looking like a defeated man and angrily trotted toward my easy-to-find bicycle looking incredibly lonely on its rack.

I hear this is how you're supposed to look when you come out of the water.

However, from my embarrassing amount of mistakes I was able to glean a couple of valuable lessons. 1) There is no substitute for practice, and 2) Stay focused on racing your own race. Following this disaster, I tried to get in as many open water swims prior to the next race, and quickly became more comfortable with the mass starts, pacing myself, and staying (relatively) on course. Although the end results have only been marginally better, they have been overwhelmingly less stressful.

I do still hate swimming, but take some comfort in knowing at least I was able to weather the initial storm and can forever brag about how I didn’t drown without even rounding the first buoy.