MY FIRST TRIATHLON

Please allow me to refer back to an excerpt posted on this blog on the 15th day of May, 2010.

“To be honest, I’m never going to sign up for any event that calls for swimming in bodies of water other than a filtered swimming pool. No way! If it’s all the same, I’ll keep my body out of murky, polluted, shark & gator infested bodies of water. And besides, I would resent having other triathletes kick me in the head just because my swim pace might be slightly slower than theirs.”

So much for my promise to myself! On the 28th day of August, 2010, yours truly participated in a sprint triathlon in the very same park where I do all of my run and bike training. When signing up for the event, my thinking was that nothing could go wrong in my personal training grounds, not even in the park’s main lake.

Race day started out to be a perfect morning. The winds were calm, the temperature was in the low eighties, and the triathlon folks kept the capacity at a reasonable 300 people – and some of those 300 participating athletes were going to be doing the duathlon and not the triathlon, which meant less people in the water and less swimmers vying for personal space while swimming in the lake.

My mini-triathlon ended up being real mini – at least for me. After swimming out about 200 feet from the shoreline and starting line, maybe farther, I evidently went into an anxiety attack of sorts. I never could get my breathing down from the very beginning, and it only got worse as I swam. I even tried breaststroke with no noticeable improvement.

The water was black, spooky and disgusting, and I do mean disgusting.  You couldn’t even see your arms stroking in front of you, but you could feel the slimy grass beneath your body when swimming.

A quick decision had to be made before I ventured too far from shore.

Feeling a bit apprehensive at that moment, and doubting myself, I chose to swim back to shore and continue on with the biking and running – knowing full well that I would be listed as DNF. In fact, the guy at the starting line advised me that I would be listed as such, but in the same breath he commented on how much determination I must have for continuing on with the biking and running despite the potential DNF classification. He made me feel worthy and more determined.

Well, they have me listed in my AG (age group 65-69) as the winner. Not remaining for the awards ceremony after a friend of ours was awarded her age group third-place medal, we didn’t have a clue that I would have been awarded a medal when they came to my age group. I’m glad that I left because I would have been compelled to embarrassingly decline the award.

Turns out, I was the only participant in my age group.   

Anyway, I’m not discouraged in the least. My mistake was not jumping into the water beforehand and warming up, and not training in that type of environment. Even in a pool, it takes me two to three laps, often more, just to get my oxygen flowing throughout my system. Even when I was a youngster, my breathing was challenged considerably while swimming and running.

Yesterday morning, I swam one-mile. The day after the event, I swam ½ mile, both times in the swimming pool. I’m a skilled swimmer, but when you have an anxiety attack in open water, you’re goose is cooked. My goose was cooked well done.

I’ve since signed up to participate in the Port St Lucie duathlon October 10th. Whenever I become skilled in open-water swimming, I’ll give a triathlon another try. But until that time comes, only duathlon, biking and running events will be on my agenda.

Oh, my biking and running during the triathlon went really well. Much better than expected!

So you see, there were more positives than negatives that came out of that triathlon. Rather than be defeated by one negative, I’ll build on the two positives.