Okay. So I've been lazybones and have taken a good like three weeks to post the whole thing about this triathlon. Thing is, people are still asking me about it, which means that I'm still verbally processing it without having really internally processing it so usually I wouldn't be ready to write about it but now it's hanging over my head because I've got a million other things to write about and I feel like I can't do that until I finish this.
Seriously y'all, I haven't even Emailed my supporters to shower them with love and kisses and gratitude and let them know that I BAWLED MY EYES OUT FOR THEM at the pain during the 6 mile run. But more on that later.
So. The bike course went up Cesar Chavez, UP Congress to Mary Street, down (then back up a false flat) to the Capitol (kind of awesome, wish I had my camera on me but Kyle was busy being my papparrazzo), then hang a right down CC, go around by the Town Lake hike & bike over by Austin High, UP THE HILL at Run Tex, then back over to CC. And around again. Three times.
The first time going up the Congress hill I was all YEAH! OLYMPIC TRI! and then, I fumbled my water bottle. To the ground. The only one I'd brought and strapped to my bike, which is of course the moment that the MOMENT I decided to only take one water bottle flashed into my brain and I hated life. So, I had 24.5 more miles to go and had no water. And no aid stations on the bike. I was honestly afraid to push it because I had the sinking feeling that I started out with less hydration than was necessary, so I just ambled along, getting passed by HUNDREDS of bikers. On the second pass of Congress I stopped and picked up my water bottle, very nearly taking out a couple elite bikers behind me (yeah, that was me getting LAPPED, not beating them) but I didn't so much care because I had my WATER! but of course by then it was too late. And I had already started my very long, very scathing list of things to think about the Sprint distance triathletes, see, because on the bike we had to do 3 loops of the track, whilst they did 2.
So demoralized and dehydrated, I started the run, which was really bad news to my legs, who were all YEAH! GOOD GAME! WAIT...WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?!?!. PLUS, every time I started even thinking about running, chills started rolling over my body in mid 90-degree heat, which I found out later was early signs of heat stress. Which leads to heat stroke. Um, yeah. Super suck.
The sprinters got to do one loop of the run course, and we had to do two, which I mostly walked, and by the second round, I'm pretty sure I was one of like 20 people left on the course. So there I am, shivering, feeling quite low, and TOTALLY doing the Ugly Cry because 1) holy crap my body hurt so much and whose idea was this ANYWAY?!?! Oh right. Mine. and 2) I really, really started missing my grandfather. These uncontrolled images of him were flooding my brain and I remembered everything about the 6 months between him being diagnosed with cancer and then dying. So, that sucked, but it was also kind of therapeutic because I have never cried about him like that. I realized just how much I miss him. I miss both my granddads. Some girls are daddy's girls, I was my granddads' girl through and through.
So anyway, the only thought that pulled me through all of that was the realization that all the pain I was inflicting on myself was my CHOICE. However, I was racing not for myself but for all the people who have gone through pain that they didn't want to choose. I ran for those who could not run, and somehow that made me own all of that pain that I had felt over the years and make finishing like I really had conquered something. The cancer that has taken my family from me and plagued my friends and mentors has broken my heart repeatedly, and I finally felt like I gave it the good punch in the face it deserved.
P.S. Happy Birthday Mom I love you! Cancer free for like, 26 years now :)
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