On Sundays I cross train. This means that I pick a low impact activity that will get my heart rate up and work on my cardio while giving my knees, back, and body a break from pounding the pavement. For my first cross training session I decided to do the Danskin Women's Sprint Triathlon with my sister, Emily. I thought it was a brilliant idea. Weirdly, I wasn't on the same painkillers I was on when I decided to do the marathon. Maybe I am crazy after all.
Anyway, Emily and I had signed up a long time ago. Neither of us actually trained for the event. We both figured that we work out enough we could at least finish the thing. Plus, this was a great excuse for me to get my bike a tune up, buy a some new running clothes, and have a (literally) sink or swim opportunity to learn how to use a wetsuit. I originally wasn't going to rent one but when I heard that the water temperature was a chilly 61 degrees, I had second thoughts. Fortunately, I'm not completely crazy.
All of the women's wetsuits in Boulder were rented. All of them. So I ended up at Fleet Feet Sports squeezing into an XS men's suit. I got it on as well as I could before stepping out of the dressing room to two men who started pinching the rubber of the suit around my ankles and wiggling it up my legs. I wouldn't have been surprised if one of them had gone back to the back to get a giant shoe horn.
The pinching and pulling happened for a while. "Look," said the salesman, "this is how it's suppose to fit." I turned around to look in the mirror, hoping to see a surfer girl from the movies or at least one of those really buff, aerodynamic professional triathletes. The girl looking back at me looked more like a large black tuna fish, round in places that I that I thought I was relatively flat, and flat in places I thought I was a little round. I made a mental note of an idea for a new business: wetsuits with Batman abs built in. Possible expansion of the idea: little motors.
I didn't sleep at all the night before the race. Emily and I got up at 4:25 to drive from Boulder to Aurora. It seemed like the only other people on the road were also women with bikes on their roofs, trunks and in their back seats. Some of them were also towing sleeping fan clubs in their passenger seats. We got our transition areas set up and watched the elites start the race.
Before long it was my turn to walk down the boat ramp with 99 other nervous, excited ladies. An iron man champion (a triathlon that is about a 2 1/2 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile marathon) tried to pump us up with girl-power cheers. "What are you when you swim?" she shouted at us through a megaphone. "Beautiful!" we were all suppose to reply. I snickered and thought I looked anything but beautiful standing there in my tuna-suit and swim cap. "What are you when you bike?" she continued... apparently, we are always beautiful. I figured by the time I was done with this I would just be stinky.
The race itself went pretty well. Aside from the fact that I almost drown during the swim - which had been shortened from 1/2 mile to a 1/4 mile due to water temperature. Apparently, I couldn't get my wetsuit high enough by myself and it tried to strangle me the whole time. The water didn't really feel that cold but with the restrictive nature of the wetsuit and the fact that everyone around me kept kicking water into my face when I was trying to breathe I started panicking a little. I found out later the swim took me about 6:01. Longest 6:01 minutes of my life.
The bike was hillier than I expected, and I was dizzy after the swim. Once I got used to working myself up the hills to fly down them at about 30 mph, it went pretty well. The downhill part is my favorite. I did get a little self conscious about how little I was wearing when I saw a girl wipe out going around a corner. In my sports bra and tri shorts, I would get a pretty horrible road burn. I made the decision not to fall.
Since Emily was riding my bike, I borrowed a bike from a friend. I rode it up and down the street in flip flops like I used to do when I was a kid on Saturday to make sure the seat was high enough and all the gears worked. However, I neglected to trying clipping in and out with my clip shoes. I got into the clips just fine at the beginning of the ride, but as I approached the transition area, tired from the route but looking forward to a snack before the run, I couldn't get out of the clips. I jerked my ankle to the side, which was all it took to get out of the clips on my bike, and my foot didn't budge. I tried again, thinking about how embarrassing it would be to tip over in front of all the people who had lined up to watch us finish the bike.
Just then, I saw a volunteer directing traffic. It looked like she had a halo on. No, just kidding, but I rode directly at her anyway screaming something like, "I can't get out of my clips! Help! Help!" People on the sidelines decided they would assist me in yelling at the poor victim I was cruising straight for. They started yelling along with me, "Help her! Help her!" She caught my bike by the handlebars, and I still couldn't get out of my clips, so I ripped the Velcro off the top of my shoes and sprinted into the transition area in my socks, bike in tow, shoes bumping off the ground still attached to the pedals.
The run was the least eventful leg, and my strongest activity. My calves were tired and I was getting warm, but aside from that, everything went smoothly. As I passed one girl, who was breathing so hard she could barely talk I heard her say something like, "let's go ladies, we're almost there, we can do it," over and over and over. I wanted to just grab her hand and pull her along for a while. She seemed so tired, but had such a great, encouraging spirit.
I came flying, well, stumbling, up to the finish line at 31:07. The announcer yelled something like, "and here comes Lindsay Br-ou-st!" I was pleased that I could hold an average of a 10:02 mile pace after thrashing around in the water and riding a bike. I was also pleased to hear a new pronunciation of my last name.
And you know what, I guess I did feel a little beautiful. Very stinky. But a little beautiful too.
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