Triathlete!

Yesterday I became an official triathlete by way of the Jersey Girl Triathlon. It was QUITE an experience.

As you know, I did my very first Ocean Swim on Saturday, just one day before the triathlon itself. Because I took a bit of a tumble on Saturday I was kind of nervous as I went to bed on Saturday night. I went to bed at 9pm, but I think I didn’t truly fall asleep until after 10, and that was after I gave myself a good talking to (“Yes, you could get tumbled again, but that will happen one way or the other tomorrow. Your job is to be rested so that if you do get tumbled again you don’t fall apart!”) and some self-induced hypnosis (highly recommended for forcing sleep when your brain is busy wringing its little synaptic hands).

4am: vibrating phone. Eyeballs open: It’s time!

Here’s something to know about me. I used to have a job where I travelled a good amount for work. During that time I completely stopped packing in advance for trips. On the morning of a 3-4 day trip I get up and pack my suitcase. It seems to work out fine. But NOT for the triathlon. I ran around my house between 8 and 9pm on the night before obsessively finding things and putting them in my bag (For example, I brought three pairs of socks because I didn’t know if i would want thin socks, thick comfy socks or really short socks). Thus, when I woke up at 4am all I had to do was grab my stack of clothes (tri top, tri shorts, sports bra, socks (these socks did not make the cut for the race, by the way), running shoes and jersey girl t-shirt to wear before and after) and head out of the bedroom. David got up with me because he’s awesome and checked to be sure my bike and helmet were on/in the car and to be sure I got my water bottles out of the refrigerator. I grabbed an ice pack for my heel spur, he handed me a to-go coffee and an apple and off I went! On the road at 4:30!

5:30am: Arrival at Ocean Place Resort/Transition Set Up

The trip down to Long Branch took about an hour. As I got off the highway I started to get nervous as I didn’t see a single bike on the back of any cars. Where were all these women? Was I late, early? Was this the wrong day? It wasn’t until I was directly across the street from the Ocean Place resort that I saw a bike on the back of a car… and I saw HUNDREDS of them. A stream of SUVs driven by women with bikes attached were pulling into the parking lot. We were given a $5 rate as participants and were able to park right next to transition. I got out of my car, got my bike off the back, threw my bag over my shoulder and followed the flow of women to transition.

The transition area was a patch of grass with rows and rows of bike racks. But not the typical bike racks with a number of slots where you stick your wheel and your bike stands up, but essentially a single bar where you hang your bike either by its seat or by the handlebars. Like this:

Once you have your bike hanging you spread your stuff out on a towel and get it organized. Here’s my cookie monster towel with my stuff organized underneath. You can see my helmet with sunglasses inside, my race belt (Who knew my trusty spibelt was also a race belt!) with my run bib, my shoes with socks tucked inside (I went with the thin socks) and my bag full of crap behind it. I also put some energy gummy things so I could grab it on my way out. I was so organized! What could go wrong?!

6:30am: Transition Closes, Get to the Beach!

I spent the hour I had in transition sort of roaming around… going to the bathroom, getting body marked (they put my number on my arm and my age on my leg), walking back to the car to get my phone (so I could take the above picture of transition), figuring out a heuristic for getting back to my bike from the swim (walk past the white sign and then go 5 racks into aisle 9). Despite all that time, when he called “Get to beach, ladies! Transition is closing! Everyone who is swimming, get to the beach!” I panicked. I ran off towards the beach, then realized I was wearing shoes. Back to the rack. Back to the beach! “Ah! I have no goggles!” Back to the rack. Back towards the beach. Shit! Where is my swim cap! Back to the rack. Back towards the beach. “I should really have some goo” Back to the rack, and FINALLY, on to the beach with swim cap, goggles, ear plugs, no shoes and mild jitters.

The first three heats were lined up in the swim corral and the rest of us were congregating on the beach more or less near a person with a stick that had our heat on a sign at the top. I ran into my new friend Jess and her cousin, Heather and we shared our excitement and nerves, then I joined heat 8 and stood watching the first group of women go into the water. The ocean was much calmer on the day of the event than it was the day before so I felt my nerves calm down. I wasn’t too likely to get attacked by a wave. Thank you King Triton.

The ladies of heat 8 chatted somewhat casually as we moved towards the corral. When 7 went into the corral we got a little bit more serious. We were on deck next! We started watching the heats go in and talking about the waves. Two super cool things happened while we were waiting to go into the water.

There were DOLPHINS! They were jumping through the water not too far from where the swimmers were crossing parallel to the shore! DOLPHINS!
A girl behind who was scanning the beach suddenly hollers “GO MOM!!!!!” and I say, “Mom? Whose Mom?” “My Mom!” she says and I see a woman across the beach pump her arm in the air in response to her daughters shout. HOW AWESOME IS THAT??? I totally want to do this with my daughter in 15 years.

7:10am: SWIM!!!

Heat 8 is in the corral. Heat 8 is next. Heat 8 is ON THE BEACH! “GO HEAT 8!!” shouts the woman on the beach and off we go! There were TOO MANY PEOPLE going into the water to actually swim. I dropped back and back and back and finally, when I turned at the first buoy I was able to go out into the ocean a little bit and actually swim. It was FINE! Totally fine! At one point I think I ran a kayaker back some because when my head popped up to breath he was backpedalling and said, “Head back in!” I was headed out to sea again! But I made a sharp turn towards the buoy and made it into the beach area without incident. I was nervous and probably spent an extra minute looking behind me to be sure I didn’t get hit by a crashing wave, but eventually I sort drifted into shore and a volunteer helped me up. “Good job! Off you go!” and I was running across the beach to transition!

I want to give a shout out to Jersey Girl right now– they made that swim so much nicer than it could have been. When you went out to stand on the beach they were full of encouragement. “You are about to become triathletes! You are going to do great!” and there were men in gold speedos who would swim beside you carrying a noodle THE WHOLE WAY if you were nervous (Swim angels, they were called). And the kayakers were there keeping you (ME!) from swimming out to sea and there were volunteers helping you up out of the water. Honestly, it was GREAT. If you want to do a triathlon for the first time, THIS is the one to do. 7min, 51 seconds in the water.

7:17am: Back to transition.

I run across the beach, up the stairs, stop to get my feet sprayed off and then run over to transition. I flop down on the ground, dry my feet on cookie monster and put on the thin socks. I lace up my shoes, grab my helmet and stick it on my head. Grabbing a pack of energy gummies, I snag my bike off the rack and move towards the out door for the swim-bike transition. Time in transition: 2min, 43 sec.

7:20AM: BIKE!!!

I hopped on my bike and started powering down the street and at the first turn WHAT DID I SEEE????? Two adorable children and one awesome husband holding signs!!! One that said “Run like a girl- FAST!” and one that said “My Tri Mommy Rocks!”

I almost cried. I know, enough with the crying! But my kids were on a street an hour away from our home at 7:20 in the morning holding signs! For ME! I could cry right now. But I won’t, I’ll keep writing.

The bike route was very flat. It was sort of graded up on the way out and down on the way back, but mostly it was flat. After taking a few minutes to drink some water and eat my gummies, I put my head down and pedaled hard. For the first time in my life I had that moment that my husband describes ever single time he does something athletic: I looked ahead and I said “I could pass those people.” AND THEN I DID! “On your left!” and I slid right by! Once the Ocean Place Resort came into view I realized I might be “Leaving the run on the bike” by pushing too hard on the bike ride. “Well,” I said to myself “If you’ve done it, you better do it!” and I dug deep and flew down the rest of the course. As I zipped around the corner I saw 2 adorable children and one awesome husband again. Alex had a look of total awe and excitement that made my heart sing. I geared way down and stood up in my pedals for the last 500 meters so get some feeling into my legs and had to be told to “Slow down for dismount!” which I did and crossed the timing mat at 44 minutes. 4 minute miles!!! Two things are crazy about that time:

It’s an average of 15 miles an hour. That is FAST for me. I usually peak (unless I’m going downhill) at around 14mph. To AVERAGE 15 is EPIC.
A four minute mile is an Olympic RUN time. There are people who run FASTER than my quickest bike pace. Amazing.

8:04: Back to transition!

I walked my bike back to the cookie monster towel and hung it back up. I threw my bike helmet down, grabbed my race belt and headed out of transition towards the run course. They lost my chip time for T2, but I think it was probably about the same as T1, about 2.5 minutes.

8:07(ish): RUN!!!!

I grabbed a cup of water, downed some goo, and trotted across the timing mat. I started my watch (I hadn’t been running the watch the whole time because I forgot to charge it! grrrrrrr) and realized I was running a 9:26 mile. I run 11 minute miles so this was TOO FAST. I tried to slow down so I didn’t completely lose it by the end and was able to slow down to about 10:30 miles. As I mentioned, I was pretty sure that I had left the run on the bike, but I actually found that running was not too arduous. I kept my pace and followed the course. The course went down the beach to the right, turned around and then down the boarwalk to pass (not cross) the finish line and then down and turn around to come back and cross the finish line. I don’t love courses like that because I don’t really want to think about the finish line until I’m at the finish line, but there was a certain motivation to hitting mile 2 and hearing other women’s names being called as they crossed the line.

Guess who I saw just before mile 2??? Two adorable children and one awesome husband! They were cheering for the other women and Abi was looking particularly excited this time. “Yay Mommy!!!” she shouted! Alex was looking kind of grumpy… probably because he was confined to a stroller. But he smiled at me as I ran by waving at him.

I did the last turn around and looked at my watch. I had dropped to an 11 minute mile. Well, I said, I might as well DO THIS THING and I pushed it up to 10:30 and when I got to the cheering crowd I sprinted in at around 9:30 and cross the finish line right in front of two adorable children and one awesome husband!!!!!