I can’t believe that I chose to do another Oly Tri. It wasn’t long ago while wearing my long/baggy basketball shorts and cut-off Tee, that I would make fun of those dudes wearing spandex short-shorts and $50 sweat-proof shirts, those TriGeeks… “What a bunch of nerds.” Their bikes cost more than my car. “Hey! I bet my steel and fiberglass Subaru is faster than your carbon fiber Trek!”
Well, here I am. Wearing bike shorts, purchasing sweat-resistant clothing, and though I have a steel bike, it aint cheap.
Last Saturday (9th) was Aluminum Man in The Dalles Or. That morning I learned why it’s important to arrive early. My front tire on my road bike was flat and needed a new tube. With plenty of time to replace it, I let those nerves settle. Then, I walked down to the beach and saw the length of the swim course. “No way!” You see, I scouted the course a week before and decided to swim what I thought was about 2/3rds the length of the course. However, the route I swam was more like 1/10th. Apparently, I cannot measure distance over a river worth a damn. My swim started out with a “bang,” or more like a “twist.” After the gunshot, I was running with 60 other dudes and I twisted my ankle in about 1 foot of water. I hobbled another 10 yards and dove in. I was so pissed at myself. All I can think about during those first 5 minutes was about my ankle. Then I realized, “hey, I’ve been swimming in the Columbia River for 5 minutes and not once I thought about drowning.” Then, I immediately forgot about my ankle and thought about how this Columbia current is gonna shoot me out to the Pacific. Yep, it was a long-ass swim. Frontstroke, backstroke, panic, and repeat, for a miserable 20+ minutes. Swimming sucks. Running is painful, biking is painful. Personally, swimming in a river is fear. And fear is a different type of pain which spasms the muscles and stresses the heart in a complete different manner. So, the only way I can explain it is misery.
Once I got out of the water, my competitive instinct took over. It’s bike time, and I can bike. I love my bike. If you know road bikes, steel frames are great. Comfortable, reliable, but heavy. Nearly, everyone there had a racing or triathlon bike. Carbon fiber or aluminum, low, heavy gears, light, and fast. The course was hard. One of the hardest rides I’ve ever ridden. However, I put every ounce of energy I had into that ride and it paid off. When I got off the bike, I was in the top 13. What I learned is when you put that much effort into a bike portion of a tri, you will not have much left in the tank for the run.
My run sucked. It hurt, I was wicked slow, and I had bloody feet. It hurt because running hurts. I was slow because my of the bike ride. My feet were bloody because I decided that putting on socks would cost me too much time during the bike-to-run transition…Stupid!
I finished. This I thought should always be the goal. I use to a competitive athlete growing up. Now that I’m older, more mature, and have bad knees; triathlons are all about the training to stay fit, the experience, meeting new people, etc. NOPE!!! That was the mindset for my first race and now I race to win. If you have a competitive athletic nature, you know that this sucks all the fun out of it. I feel that this is very unfortunate because I want to keep it fun. Yet, we are who we are and I just can’t help myself.
Well stay tuned for my next tri blog. My prediction is I’ll be unhappy with the result… But hey, it keeps me disciplined to staying fit.
Jesse
To read my blog on my first tri. Click here
) This coming year, I plan on doing some serious Tri’s so look forward to more complaining from your’s truly. Alright all, keep training!
