In August 2009 I completed my first ever triathlon - this was about 7 months into my weight-loss and fitness quest and I'd dropped about 30lbs at this point...
We had no issues finding a parking spot right by the ferry docks - not all that surprising before 6AM on a Saturday morning really - the only other people in the same parking lot were busy getting bikes out of their cars, and pumping up tires, and generally looking like they were going through all the same mental checklists I was doing. With that we make the walk over to the ferry docks to wait with all the other athletes waiting for the 6AM ferry. There was some chatter from the people around me about how they'd done last year, and how this morning felt warmer than it had the previous year - of course I didn't know the meaning of the word "fitness" this time last year, so had no comments to offer to these conversations. The ferry showed up, and we all walked on with our bikes - such a range of bikes - as this was a "try-a-tri" race, it's a race designed for beginners and athletes who want to do a short distance race - there was everything from BMX to mountain bikes to the $5000 Cervello bikes surrounding me. I'd opted to not ride the touring comfort bike I'd gotten last year, and instead picked up an old Norco road bike in a garage sale for $25 earlier in the summer - if this bike got me through this race it was going to be the best $25 I'd ever spent!
Crossing lake Ontario over to the island took about 10 minutes - the sun was just starting to rise behind us, and the Toronto skyline was still shrouded in darkness. We followed everyone else off the ferry an over to the transition area. I've been watching lots of You tube videos all about the transition area, so knew I was going to rack my bike with the front of the saddle over the bar, got out my folded towel and laid it on the ground next to my bike and lay out my helmet, sun glasses, shoes, socks and racebelt. I fished out my swim cap and goggles and realized that indeed I'd not forgotten anything (that I knew of yet!). Time to get marked up.
I got my race number marked down my arm and age on the back of my calf in black permanent marker, and picked up my timing chip. With a bit of advice from the officials I put the timing chip on my left ankle so that it wouldn't interfere with the chain on my bike. Now it was just time to wait. It was 6:30AM, the sun was still rising, and then we realized what we didn't have with us - there was no way of knowing this one either - apparently before sunrise the island is owned by the mosquitos - there were swarms of them telling everyone they encountered that this was their place. I was so please I'd put on long pants and long sleeves over my tri-suit, but they were even managing to bite through my top! People wearing shorts were covered in red welts all down their legs. All I could do was just keep moving in the hope that they wouldn't land on me that much!
Announcements were starting telling everyone there to get their numbers marked on them, how to rack their bike, and describing the general course. I took a walk over to the beach where the swim was going to take place to get a feel for the water - it was around 20C, which is a pretty good temperature for Lake Ontario, especially considering the weather we've had up until now this year, but the walk from the transition area to the beach was all loose sand, and it was quite a trek - visions of running over sand after completing the swim were daunting to say the least! Still, nothing could be done about that now, and everyone else was going to have to deal with it, so time to just suck it up and get on with things!
We walked back to the transition area, and I went over my setup one last time, took of my extra layer of clothes, put them in my bag, and moved my bag out of the way. Time to grab my swim cap and goggles and head down to the water again. Luckily the sun was well onto it's way up, and the mosquitoes had all but vanished!
I was in the 3rd wave to get going, so I managed to get a bit of a warm-up in the water, it was a nice calm day, so that water was flat, and clean, then stood back to watch the first two waves get going. Such a scrum when the air horn goes off with arms, feet and water going everywhere - some folks hanging back so they don't get kicked, some people going out really strong only to lose it all about 100 meters in. The lifeguards looking on intently but no one's had to wave their cap in the air yet! The 2nd wave left looking a lot like the first one, and now it was my turn to line up in the scrum of people...
I chose somewhere near the centre front of the pack, I'm a strong swimmer, but I wasn't planning on going out fast - I just didn't fancy having too many feet kicking me in the face! I'd read about setting up your goggles under your cap so there was no chance of them getting slapped or kicked off unless someone really kicked me in the face. A few more pre-race announcements reminding us not to draft on the bike course, and then time had arrived and my air-horn went off. People everywhere - the only thoughts in my head were of how did I get here? Why was I doing this? Can I do this? Once I got out to the first buoy the mass of people had scattered and things were calmer, I could concentrate on the swim now, just a steady pace, that's all I cared about. I was remembering to look where I was going, remembering to breathe out under water to make use of the time when my face was out of the water to get a full breath. The water temperature was perfect, and I was pleased I hadn't panicked too much about not having a wetsuit - I didn't need it. Rounding the 2nd buoy marked the furthest point out, it was all back to the shore from here. I was now alongside another swimmer - she and I kept pace for the rest of the race, and dodged the lifeguard that was helping out someone from the previous wave. Lake Ontario is reasonably shallow at this point, so when the bottom became visible again I knew I still had a bit more swimming to go, but I was going to make it, a steady pace throughout, no need to stop, and I was feeling good. Getting to the edge my husband was there yelling encouragement - I was the 17th person in my wave out of the water - I had no clue I was that far up - well that's hopeful, maybe I will do ok at this race!
Then the best news of the day - that loose sand run I was dreading turned out to only be the walk down to the beach - the run back to transition was a different route and was mostly a boardwalk until you made it back to the grass - result! Again pleased to not have a wetsuit to fight with, I took off my goggles and cap while running and found my way over to my bike. All the bikes were racked by age group - my rack was abandoned - lots of bikes and no people, so I had lots of room, and a nice calm area. Managed to stay standing to get my socks and shoes on (I know so many people talk about doing tri races without socks, but I just couldn't face the thought of getting blisters!), got my race belt on with the number in the back, on with the sunglasses (I learnt my lesson a couple months ago what biking and getting a bug in the eye felt like) and finally on with the helmet. Grab my bike and I was off. I'm not the most natural type at getting on and off a bike - I'd been practicing in a quiet area near my house getting on while pushing off with my other foot - I'd got the hang of it, but was still a bit apprehensive, and I hadn't bargained on there being people coming out of the transition and stopping in the middle of the road to get on their bike! So, I half committed to doing a push start, then saw all the people and made the biggest mistake I could - I put the brakes on... this landed me (literally!) on the side of the track with the bike on the ground... drat.... still, I was fine, if not a little embarrassed, but simply give up hope of a rolling start, get on my bike and that was it, I was off - and passed two people while I was at it....
Passing people turned out to be a continuing trend in fact - I was amazed at the number of times I was shouting out "On your left!" as I went past people. Most were on fat tires with their mountain bikes, but there were a few serious competitors out there that I was passing too. What a pretty track it was also - we were riding the entire length of the island and back, and I was pretty relaxed through the entire journey, of course I was keeping up a good pace, but managed to wind up the onlooking EMS squad by asking them if they were enjoying the scenery today... They did admit it was better than normal! I yelled a few words of encouragement to the other cyclists letting them know they were nearly half way. Nearing the end of the 10Km I was starting to get a bit sore - obviously my $25 bike was doing the trick, but I knew I wasn't in the greatest position for any distance riding on this bike, but that was 2 out of 3 of the disciplines done! Getting off the bike was nowhere near as eventful as getting on the bike, nice and calmly I ran back into transition with my bike.
That's where the cramps started - stomach cramps to be precise. I knew I'd been hydrating myself, so that wasn't the issue, and now wasn't really the time to try and figure out what was going on, just hope they were going to pass, and get on with the run. The first few hundred meters were over rough wet swampy grass - really bad ground for running on, but the pavement came soon after. The first 1/2 km was really painful - I was running, but it was slow - really slow - if people had to yell "on your left" in the run I'd have been hearing a lot of that... I walked for about 50 meters, and watched my heart rate monitor, waited for it to drop about 20 beats, and then picked up the running again. I still had those cramps but I was just going to have to power through it. The second km got better and I was able to run through to the end - slowly, but it wasn't walking at least!
I crossed the line, took off my chip timer and gave it back, then grabbed some water, and walked a bit. The race organizers had laid on some fresh fruit and bagels for after the race, so I grabbed some food and finally started thinking about why I'd come down with cramps for the run - I wasn't overly physically tired, and I knew I'd been taking in water... It then came to me what may have been going on - I'd read last week that one of the major causes in cramping is lack of electrolytes and salt - we have a relatively low salt diet as it is, and indeed, I'd not had anything on race day that had any salt in it - even that peanut butter was natural peanut butter, so no salt and no sugar! The cramps continued on well into the afternoon, but they passed, and I felt good. I'd completed a triathlon! I can call myself a triathlete now... granted it was a super-sprint triathlon, but it was a race none the less. As for where I placed - I was classed in the under 40 Athena class women - that's women over 150lbs (hell, my goal weight is still over 150lbs!), and I came 5th - without falling on the bike, and if I'd not had the cramps there's a good chance I could have placed in this race - I was only 2 minutes off the 3rd place finisher... all this in my very first race - insane!
So, here's the stats - the race was a 400m swim, 10km bike and 2.5km run. There were 33 people in the Athena/Clydesdale class - that's all women over 150lbs, and men over 200lbs. Out of those 33 I came 16th with a overall time of 54:42 - that time put me 191/280 overall.
I was 11/33 in the swim, 12/33 on the bike and 28/33 on the run in the Clydesdale/Athena class and 124/280 on the swim, 114/280 on the bike and 264/280 on the run overall
Swim Time 10:46 with a pace of 2:42/100m
T1 1:44
Bike Time 20:53 with an average speed of 28.7Km/h
T2 1:08
Run Time 20:13 with an average pace of 8:06/Km (that's really slow for me.... ho hum....)
In other words, time to work on my running - I'm fairly impressed seeing as the past January I just could not run - maybe 30 seconds was what you'd get out of me, but that was it.... so in that respect this is somewhat of an achievement!
I've certainly learnt a lot from this, and now I'm just looking forward to the next one - oh, and the end of year sale on those fancy schmancy bikes - my $25 special is great, but boy do I envy those fancy bikes!
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