Tri-ing it for the 1st time!

Yesterday was the 1st day that we did all 3 components of a triathlon in one practice, and it gave me a real sense of exactly how much more intense and crazy race day is going to be than I had even realized.

We met in Long Beach at 7:45 a.m. I was so tired my eyes were practically closed shut. You know those nights where you KNOW you need to fall asleep at a decent time and because of the pressure, you just CAN'T? I was sitting on the edge of the bed at around 2 a.m. crying b/c I was so tired but my dumb brain was on hyper-overdrive. THere wasn't enough time to pop an ambien, so I just took the couple hours and figured I *might* survive the day. I barely remember the drive down there at 7 a.m. but I made it, and found my teammates somewhere on the vast landscape that is Long Beach.

First off we got a lesson in putting on our wetsuits. I figured out how to get it done a little more gracefully, but wow, was it as tight as I had remembered. Lubing up with bodyglide only goes so far. I am glad sharks prefer seals to a well-stuffed vienna sausage, because that's what I actually resemble all wetsuitted up. I was amused that our first 'ocean swim' was actually in a little harbor, not the open ocean. I'm not actually complaining about the calmness of the water, but rather that it seemed rather sewer-ish and quite frankly, was disgusting. I had briefly thought maybe a sleevless wetsuit would have been a better choice, but in retrospect the less skin actually in the water, probably the better for avoiding the dysentary. The day I actaully have to fight the surf to get out to the swim will be one for the recordbooks.

The first remarkable thing about getting in the water is that except for instant numbness in your hands and feet, you really feel NOTHING. It's amazing.
Secondly, you float completely. You can just lay back and not have to do anything to stay afloat. In fact our coach encouraged us to not kick so much when we swim b/c it just wastes energy, to just use the buoyance of the wetsuit and your arms (and draft off other swimmers) to get where you're going. Some of the boys were even more dumbfounded than I was at being able to float so well in water. I told them they can have the experience without the wetsuit if they grow some boobs and bodyfat.

I tried to avoid putting my face in for as long as possible, but ultimately you just have to do it, in order to get anywhere. It is SO different than swimming in a pool. You can't see ANYthing under the water, first of all, and second of all, there are no lanes, so I spent the entire swim zigzagging between other swimmings, kinda bouncing off them. I think one arm must be much stronger than the other b/c I practially swim in circles without the lanes to rein me in.

We did 1/2 mile...survived 1/2 mile...without contracting any infectious diseases from the nasty gnarly water, and then headed out to the bike.

It's very disorienting coming out of the water, but since my transition took about 15 minutes by the time i got on the bike - it should take like 3 minutes -- I was relatively back to normal. We did 45 minutes and then came back to transition for the run. I was annoyed on the bike ride when a 60+ year old man in SLACKS and a button-down passed me on the bridge. What the F*CK! He musta had serious bionic legs under those slacks.

I don't have much else to say about the bike/run except that wow, is it a lot harder after being i n salt water. Your skin is tight and dry, your clothes are wet, and personally I feel off kilter, maybe from water in the ear. I ran the whole 2.5 miles, but I can see that doing 6 on the actual race day, when it's NOT flat, is going to be quite a feat. Running is like torture to me...I'm sure some of it has to be with still being a higher bodyweight than I want to be, that it'll get easier, but I'm still fighting it. I'm sure fancy new shoes would help :).

So anyway, I managed to get home, but was I exhausted! The little-known 4th leg of a triathlon is called "nap"...and I excel in that.