Reality Check

Yesterday I competed in my first multi-sport race. I spent about 1/2 hour in bed between 6 and 6:30 a.m. debating sleeping in till noon, or getting down to the beach by 7 to register for the 9:00 a.m. Aquathlon. This one time, ambition won out and the comfy bed lost its bid to seduce me.

So I arrived for the event, wetsuit and running gear in tow, exhausted but also kinda...just KINDA...excited. This event is called "Playa Del Run" and consists of 1000m swim and a 5k(3.1. mile) run. Encouraged by the fact some of my teammates would be there, I thought it would be a good practice thing to do, to experience swimming in the water with 150+ other people, something I haven't done yet.

Around 8:45 a.m., after chitchat, nervous talk with some of my other fellow novices, and readjusting my transition area 67 times, we walked over to the start on the beach. I was squeezed 1/2 way into my wetsuit and oh MAN was it boiling hot in that sun. I actually couldn't wait to get in the water. In the little holding pen, I saw Erik running towards me, looking for me in the sea of people...I was happy he had made it to witness this hot mess compete in her first race.

Then the whistle went off and we barrel-assed towards the sea...the course was straight in towards a huge yellow buoy, hang a right, go down to the 3rd buoy then straight back in. Initially, I started in the back, but dove in with gusto. I'm nothing if not competitive. Turns out I'm also slow. Though around the first turn there were tons of us, by the final turn towards the beach, I suddenly felt oddly alone. I figured I was either kicking everyone's ass, or somewhere in the middleof the ocean about to do a Tom Hanks scene from Castaway. Turns out I was the latter...I struggled out of the water feeling like I weighed about 400 pounds, and turned aroudn to see VERY few people behind me in the water....Erik was there cheering me on as I ran up the beach and I managed to gasp "am i last?"...He said "no"...ok, phew....

Up to transition area, got my wetsuit off, put on the shoes and hat and took off. The 1st 1/2 of the run sucked. It was a 2-loop course so as I came around the end of the first loop, some guy was like '2 MORE MINUTES!!!'. I snorted b/c while i'm sure it WAS 2 more minutes for some people who had easily lapped me, I still had at least another 15. If I had had the strength I would have clotheslined that guy. So I ran and ran and ran some more, but did not stop once to walk, so that's SOMEthing. I finally got to the end and crossed just as I saw the time 55:45 flash. I actually did the 5K in 33 minutes, which considering it was preceded by my first swim race of 22 minutes, is not half bad for ME.

Ok, so Erik put a fake microphone in my face at the end and said 'how do you feel?' Other than wanting to face plant in the sand, I had a mix of emotions. On one hand I was psyched I did it in under an hour. On the other hand, I was really surprised at how slow my swim was. I'm not sure I pushed myself as hard as I could go, because I knew there was a run behind it, but I did think I'd do better. I KNOW I hate the run and suck at it, but I was unpleasantly surprised about the swim. Also, realizing that I would have to do double the run at the tri in june worries me....I think I really need to step up the running practice and improve on my swimming speed.
So preliminarily, I came in 168th out of 178th overall (so yeah, ALMOST last), but that doesn't include some people who didn't finish. I was 150th in the swim and 149th in the run timewise. And I think it was a pretty seasoned crowd of athletes.

The sunny side of the street is that this shows I have lots of room for improvement, which is something to look forward to. I really need to get some weight off -- I"m sure even 10 pounds would help enormously. It's been 3.5 months of training...really getting BACK in half-way decent shape. once the baseline is established, I know I can do a lot better.

The rest of my day consisted of sleep and whining about my sore body. But still, I'm really glad I did it as it helped me see exactly where I stand (and swim and run) in all this stuff.