We TRI-ed it

As previously posted, in the warmer days of summer, I convinced Tony and Tom to swim, bike, and run with me, all in one day.
Now, in the colder days of near-fall, we did it.

A short recap before we get to the nitty gritty.
Cold, Wet, Windy, and Tired…pretty much in that order.

Cold
We arrived at oh-dark-thirty to get our stuff readied. We were about sixty minutes earlier than we needed to be. So we hung out and chatted with our support team. When we thought it was a good time to take off our warm clothes and wait for our turn to dive in…well…we were about sixty minutes earlier than we needed to be. So we froze and the lake water almost felt good…at least on our feet…when we actually did dive in.

Wet
Mind you it thought about raining all morning but never really got going and after standing in the misty cold mornin’ air for darn near three hours we got the green light…or should I say the air horn of death. The 1/4 mile swim only took about 11 minutes to complete but based on the number of times I was kicked, swallowed water, and well…shivered I would have guessed it at more like 20. In the end of that stage I was certainly ready to do something I was more familiar with; ride. Tony wasn’t talking to me, that’s how much fun he had.

Windy
I was most worried about getting really cold riding the bike after being wet. Turns out that wasn’t what I should have worried about; more on that later. The ride started out flat, and turned hilly quick. Tom and I were accustomed to our rides and quickly out-paced Tony. His conveyance, let’s call her Bessie, was borrowed, heavy, shift-challenged, and generally not well suited for a time trial. Milking maybe, time trial – no. After it became clear that we were too far ahead to simply slow down for Bessie to catch up Tom and I stopped altogether to maintain the brotherhood. That was the point after all; more, again, on that later. So finally Bessie made it ’round the mountain and promptly cursed us and our steeds.

At least he was talking to me again.

So we made our final descent more or less together (apparently Bessie’s udders were draggin’) and dismounted for what was billed as ‘the easiest part of the whole thing’…by a marathoner.

Tired
Lemme just say that after biking about 3,500 miles since February I was feeling, well…fresh after the bike section. A twelve mile ride to me is like chocolate milk, it goes down smooth. About 200 meters into the 5000 meter run I was acutely aware that my chocolate milk had gone sour with a consistency of cottage cheese. I guess I should have trained for this and this is what I should have worried about.

And loping along in front, just out of reach, like a school boy on recess was Tom. Run backwards in front of me again punk, see what happens. So the marathoner in training with his quaint advice

Just hold your fingers together at the tips, like you’re holding an egg.

and Billy Elliot prancing around just out of reach of my gasping fingers prodded me along like a recalcitrant mule. I think I would have rather had a clothespin on my lip and a pair of roller blades.

I am not a runner, I mean look at these bowlegs for chrissakes! Eeee-hawwww!

So I dragged my sorry butt up that long stretch of pavement footstep by footstep, wishing I could spin into another gear, dreaming of a world where wheels ruled the land when at last we rounded the final turn. And lo and behold, if there wasn’t some fight still left in me. We managed a furious and objectionable sprint for the finish line and finished bang, bang, bang – 1, 2, 3 – alphabetically.

That really made it all worthwhile though and even my immobile and lactically challenged legs today aren’t enough of a reason to keep me from another start.

And by cracky, we all did better than Jennifer Lopez. (Never mind that she did a longer tri.)

Place 111 (out of 143)
Swimming split – 0:10:20
transition – 8:34
Biking split – 1:06:35
transition – 4:08
Running split – 0:28:52
Total 1:58:29