swim to the buoy.

My alarm went off at 3:55AM and the first thing I did was smile. I took that as a good sign...

I had climbed into bed the night before at 9PM (not normal...) and layed there on my back, pretending to be tired, pretending to sleep, for 7 hours. I didn't sleep at all... I was too excited about the race – my first triathlon!

I'd been training since April, doing 10-15 workouts a week: swimming, running, biking, lifting weights, core. It had been such a great process, all that training. It sounds weird and more-than-a-little obsessive probably, but there is something really centering about preparing with that much focus and time for something.

Purposeful.

As for the race itself, I’m not really in to competition… Wait. That’s a lie. I’m competitive with myself – very. But I don’t normally have much desire or need to “win” against another person. It doesn’t motivate me to “beat someone”. And yet there’s something official and real and legitimizing about a race, and besides, I’d promised myself that I was going to do a triathlon in 2007.

So here goes.

I sat on the edge of my bed there in the dark, still smiling. I felt really good, prepared and a little nervous…. giddy actually. What a nerd!

I had a lot to do though… I needed to get all of my stuff together, make some coffee, eat a little something, load up my truck with my gear, pick up my friend Eliza (who got me into triathlons), and get on the road to Boulder.

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It was pitch black when we got to Boulder Reservoir. It was a little after 6AM. A line of cars were pulling into the parking area… a sleepy, nervous, odd energy was everywhere. We walked through the darkness, carrying duffle bags of gear, pushing or carrying our bikes into the transition area. We looked at each other there in the dark, ridiculous obsessives, mumbling to each other, “What were we thinking? This is insane… We should be in bed.”

At the entrance to the transition area, under the blinding glare of the high-powered klieg lights, the race people stop us and ask, “have you been body marked and numbered yet”?

When they ask me this, my over-active imagination simultaneously launches two separate alternate realities: 1) we’re being processed into some Auschwitz-esque concentration camp where they write numbers on our bodies and then make us do triathlons until we find a way to escape; and 2) I woke up in some strange culture of Spartans and now I’m about to get war painted and sent out to die in battle…

Hey, it was early.

So I stripped off my shirt and a sleepy girl wrote “258” (my race number) on my arms and my hand. And then they wrote “36” on my right calf (my age). She started to move on to the next person, but I stopped her and said, “Hey, could you write something on my left forearm for me?” I asked her to write “R/YR” on me… to remind me during the race of two things: 1) Relax and 2) Your Race… meaning, to make sure I was doing MY race, and not anyone else’s.

That was my main concern – especially on the swim: being at the start line with a bunch of amped up, nervous triathletes, and getting inadvertently swept up into some herd-like vibe that made me try to swim too fast or get off my rhythm. My main goal for the race was to feel good and strong the entire time – and the best way to screw that up would be to not relax on the swim and/or to let other folks take me out of my mental space. Does that make sense? Anyway, she didn’t quite know what I meant, so I had to repeat myself… “The letter R. Then a slash. Then the letter Y. Then the letter R. Thanks…”

So Eliza and I found a good spot in the transition area – close to the Bike In and Bike Out and started laying out all my stuff: biking shoes, socks, shirt, race bib thingy, gel/fuel, water, helmut, towels, bike…

Then it was all about waiting for the gun.

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We all started walking down to the beach… looking out at the half-mile swim course. Nervously talking to each other. Making friends… “What wave are you in?” “Is this your first triathlon?” “Are you a strong swimmer?” “Why are we doing this again?” “Holy shit it’s cold!!!”

I was the ONLY person in the entire race (I think) who didn’t wear a wetsuit. "Hi. I’m John. I’ll just be shivering over here. Don’t mind me."

Actually, the water was warmer than the air temperature.

Anyway, my wave, (2nd wave) got into the water, wading out up to our chests and waiting for the gun to go off. Way out in the distance was an orange buoy. It seemed A LONG WAY OFF to me. At that buoy, we had to turn right and swim A LONG WAY OFF to another buoy. And at that buoy (which was out in the middle of nowhere, seemingly), we had to turn right again and swim A LONG WAY BACK to shore.

Jesus…

I mean, I’d only started swimming 4 months ago. And open water REALLY freaked me out the first 4 or 5 times I tried swimming in it… And here I was, seconds away from gang-swimming my way out into the middle of a fucking reservoir. What was I thinking?

But here’s the cool thing: all of my training kicked in. I felt COMPLETELY RELAXED. I didn’t even have to employ any of my mind-calming, self-help, talk-myself-down-out-of-the-tree techniques. I just put on my goggles, the gun went off and I started swimming. I felt surprisingly good and strong and decidedly NOT freaked out. As I was swimming, I kind of laughed to myself, thinking: “It’s pretty simple. You just swim to the buoy. That’s how you do it… you just swim to the buoy.”

I think I’m going to make a t-shirt that reads:

swim to the buoy.

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A half-mile later, I walked out of the reservoir feeling kind of drunk – try swimming a while and then going straight into a run some time – it feels WEIRD at first getting your “earth balance” back. I trotted up the beach to the transition area with a big smile on my face. I knew that the scariest part of the race was over. It would be easy from here on out.

Well, not really easy. I still had to bike 26 miles and run 3.1 miles. But that was just about effort and focus. I had plenty of that.

I ran into the transition area feeling the cool morning air, thinking about making sure I spent as little time as possible getting clothed and on to my bike, but not forgetting anything important… 3 minutes later, I was out of the swim-to-bike transition and starting the course! It took a little while to get the sand off my feet and my socks and shoes and shirt and race number thingy on. My feet were completely numb from the cold water, the cold sand, the cold concrete… Pedaling away from the reservoir, I sucked down a gel/fuel and focused on the ride.

The bike ride took us all around the Reservoir, away from Boulder up toward Lyons, out toward Longmont, then out to Niwot and then back to the reservoir. I felt really strong on the bike… I was actually passing people? That’s never happened before. Around mile 22, I started feeling the effort. My legs started to ache. I started to lose focus… I had to really concentrate. It’s interesting to watch your mind in a situation like this… First in the water, and then out on the bike. It’s funny how the mind reacts to different stresses… and it’s REALLY REALLY interesting to see how much power we have over our thoughts, and how much those thoughts affect everything else. During the bike, I kept repeating the word “strong” in my head, over and over, especially when it got difficult.

Eventually, the turn back to the reservoir appeared… again, one of those swim to the buoy moments. How do you get there? Keep pedaling. Ultimately, all of that training results in a very simple thing:

keep pedaling.

That will be my second t-shirt.

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I pulled into the transition, got off my bike and started running my bike to my little area… immediately, my legs LOUDLY protested… “Dude, are you fucking kidding me? You make us bike 26 miles and then you expect us to RUN? Not gonna happen pal. You’re ridiculous. We’re going to hurt – a lot – until you go over there and sit in the grass. Punk.”

But again, the training kicked in. I’d been here before… at the bike-into-run transition. I knew that my legs would eventually loosen up and stop hurting so much, about 4 or 5 minutes into the run. I just had to focus on getting my bike shoes off, my running shoes on, and getting out of the transition area.

Wait. I really have to pee first. So I did that. That took an extra 30 seconds… ducking into the portable toilet outhouse thingy in the transition area. I laughed at myself at that moment… standing there, sweating, in a plastic box at 8:30AM in the morning, thinking “Hurry hurry!”

Seriously.

So I got out on to the run course… it took us out along the two dams on the east and north side of the reservoir. A simple out-and-back with a turnaround at the half-way point.

I felt like I was going so slowly! I looked at my heart rate monitor and saw that I was right where I needed to be… I looked down at my left forearm and thought, “Relax. Easy… good form… Run your own race.” A few people passed me… some of them REALLY FAST. These were folks from later waves – seriously fit people. And a few not so fit looking people. Humbling! I knew that this was just a 5K run and that I needed to stay focused and just gut it out. The race was nearly finished… I remembered my main goal: to finish strong. I started repeating that word again… strong. I just had to gut it out. And honestly, I didn’t feel that bad. I felt pretty good, actually. That’s the 3rd T-shirt:

gut it out.

I watched my times (splits) and realized that I was running faster than I felt. Again, funny and interesting to see the difference between what we think and feel on one hand, and reality on the other hand. It’s a really useful lesson to be reminded of: what we think isn’t so important all the time. How we feel isn’t always the best measure of the truth. Again, humbling. So I just kept running.

I saw my friend Tanya on the run course after the turnaround she was running toward me – we high-fived and called each other rock stars. It was great. Made me run a little faster – and her too (she told me after the race).

In no time at all, I was at the top of the final little hill that led down to the finish line. It felt surprisingly unimportant, when I saw the finish line. What I mean is, it just felt normal. Like, “Oh look… there’s the finish line.” No big rush of emotion or anything… just another end to another run.

Oddly, that felt good. I was about to finish my first triathlon and it felt pretty much like another workout to me. Not that it wasn’t GREAT… just a statement about how well prepared I was, thanks to my triathlon coach, Eddie Herd, and all of the smart workouts he gave me. Honestly, I just did what he told me to do and it completely worked. Literally, ANYONE can do this. Thanks Eddie… ☺

(Side note: Eddie’s about to do his 4th Hawaii Ironman in 1 month. He’s incredible – a total athlete hero.)

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So I crossed the finish line. Eliza was there, cheering me on. I walked up to her, gave her a big sweaty hug, got some water and hung out for a while, talking with Eliza and Tanya… talking about the race. And then we drove back to Denver.

By 10:30AM, I was back at my house… I walked in, saw Emma waiting for me in the kitchen, gave her a scratch on her ears and said, “Emma! I just did a triathlon!”

She yawned and stretched and looked up at me, saying, “Wanna go for a run?”

Thanks to everyone who read all of my blog entries about this triathlon stuff... and who sent me well wishes over the last 4 or 5 months. It really made a difference to know that you were cheering me on!

~John


P.S. I'm planning on doing an Olympic distance triathlon next season. I just need to get healed up from my hand surgery (Oct 2nd) before I can get back to training hard a gain...

P.P.S.

My numbers... race tattoos...





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race stats:

total race time - 2:15:10
750 meter swim - 18:07
swim to bike transition - 2:56
26 mile bike - 1:23:56
bike to run transition - 1:44
5K run - 28:28

(The race-winning time was 1:27:55 Holy shit!)