Yesterday I achieved another goal – I completed a sprint triathlon and became a triathlete.

This goal was not easy to come by, and it did not go smoothly.  There were days before the race I just couldn’t train anymore, and a lot of mentally frustrating workouts.  My worst day came on Thursday before the race.  Nathan and I were doing an open water swim at National Harbor through our tri club, the Old Towne Tri Club (OTTC).  The event was run by WaveOne Swimming and they had three buoys set 100 meters apart (for a 300 meter swim).  I pulled on my wetsuit and jumped in, and struggled my way through 200 meters.  As I made the final turn, I had a panic attack.  Most tri open-water swimmers will have one of these at some point, but it is seriously terrifying.  You have to remind yourself that you can breathe and that you will make it through without drowning.  I made it to the dock, got out of the water, and had to cool myself down.  I thought for sure there was no way I could swim in the 500 meter sprint on Sunday.  Nathan gave me some good advice about it being mental, and I jumped back in for a much easier 300 meter swim.

After training for five weeks, Saturday we were finally on our way to Warsaw for the Naylor’s Beach Sprint Triathlon.  We arrived just in time for the pre-race briefing around 3:45pm, then picked up our packets and scoped out our transition spots.  We were exhausted from the drive, so we made our way to the hotel, which ended up that I had accidentally booked the wrong one (the one I booked was over an hour away!).  Nathan made some calls and we ended up at the sketchiest Super 8 motel in Tappahannock.  Our $80 “king-sized non-smoking suite” was actually a king sized bed with a large space and an old couch, we had to check for bed bugs before we were comfortable going to bed, and there was a glorious view of a bustling Sheetz outside our window.  Good thing we were both exhausted from the trip!  We ended up grabbing a meal at Applebee’s nearby and stopping by Wal-Mart to grab a few things, then passed out around 9pm.

Sunday morning the alarm went off at 6am.  The transition area opened at 7, so we were eager to get things going to have as much time as possible.  Nathan went out to take gear to the truck, and when he grabbed a cup of coffee on the way back in he accidentally poured waffle batter in to his cup instead of creamer!  So he threw it away and grabbed the bikes to pump them full of air, but when he went to pump mine up the stem snapped off.  So he had to replace my tire with the extra tube from my pack.  All good and done… kind of.  So he went inside to grab another cup of coffee but ended up smashing the lid, so he had to drink his coffee from the side of the cup!

We finally made it to the race and set up our transition spaces.  Someone came by and marked our numbers on our arms and legs, and then we found out the water was 80 degrees so wetsuits were allowed but not legal for awards.  We both decided to wear ours anyway, and walked to the start area for the beginning of the tri.

He was out first, and I think he ended up coming out of the water 4th out of the 91 guys in his wave!  I was in the next wave with the women, and it was an exhausting experience.  When it started, all of us were moving in a big pack trying to do our best to swim without getting kicked in the face by the person in front.  The area we were swimming was shallow enough to touch the ground, so what ended up happening was the swim turned in to an “ocean sprint!”  I ended up 36th out of 78 in my wave.

I ran out of the water huffing a puffing, and jogged in to the transition area to rip off my wetsuit and put on my biking gear.  Everything seemed to be going well, and I was off.  What I didn’t realize, was that when Nathan had changed my tire earlier that morning I had not checked my rear brakes to make sure they were in the correct position.  Unfortunately they weren’t, so my entire 12 mile bike was more of a struggle than it should have been.  Every time I would go down a steep hill, the tire would wobble and catch the brake, which would slow me down.  Ultimately I was peddling down hill, which should not have been necessary.  I had a bit of a frustrating moment at mile 10 when I realized I was being passed by tons of bikes.  Not only was I having that braking problem, but when I reached mile 11.5 my rear tire went completely flat.  I was so close to the finish line and didn’t have a spare tube (we had used it that morning), so I literally biked in on the rims.  We discovered later that the tape around my rim had been torn and my tire had been slowly leaking the entire race.  Thank goodness I made it to the end!

I hooked my bike back up on the stand, changed in to my running shoes, and took off for the three mile run.  At one point in the first mile I passed Nathan, so that was very cool!  We waved and congratulated each other for being so close to the finish!  Then, I looked down and realized I had lost my tracking chip at some point during the race.  UGH.  My heart dropped, and I turned around to run back to see if I could find it, but realized I had gone too far and just kept going toward the finish.  The run was HARD.  My legs were not cooperating and it was so blasting hot.  My body was just generally mad and I had to take a couple walk breaks to regather myself.  Finally I saw the finish line and bolted for it.  Luckily I was able to find someone immediately to let them know I had lost my chip, so I could get a time.  Nathan found my chip safely tucked in my wetsuit from my first transition, so I handed it in and we left.

All in all it was a successful day, but what would a first triathlon be if it wasn’t hard?  I ended 101st out of 166, and Nathan ended 38th!