When Kate and I drove up it was still dark, and we loaded up busses that would take us out to the tri staging area. We got our stuff laid out for the tri (we had racked our bikes the night before) and headed over to watch the swimmer start, which is about when the nervous giggles began. No, "giggles" is not at all the right word - I would burst into laughter every couple minutes or so because part of my brain kept nudging me in the ribs and saying, "dude. you're seriously doing this?" and I would crack up at the absurdity. The butterflies in my stomach were quiet until about the time that Kate and I made it down to the water, when they started stretching their wings.
We spent a lot of time watching Sally Edwards motivate colour groups and give them an adjective to insert into mantras like "I am a lightning fast swimmer/biker/runner." Every colour group got their own adjective. I was going for "bitchin'" but doubted that would be the word of our day and I laughed when Sally asked the crowd, "What kind of swimmer are you?!" and the lady next to me yelled, "SLOW!" Kate and I did some warming up in the lake and then headed over to watch a swim exit, which was pretty uneventful until there was a huddle on the beach. A girl clearly needed help getting out of the water and Kate and I both gasped when someone had to carry her out of the water. We thought maybe she had hurt herself because her legs were limp as she was carried out of the water but someone turned around and said, "She's in a wheelchair." I looked over at Kate and we both burst into tears simultaneously. That shut the butterflies up - if she could do it, then certainly I could.
As we lined up behind the group preparing to depart, the butterflies had turned from itty bitty sluggish not-awake-yet creatures into giant, vibrant things, smashing their wings against each other as I inched closer to the water. Our colour groups word ended up being powerful which would throughout the race prove to be the most inspiring thing I could say to myself. It really was incredibly helpful to say to myself "I am a powerful biker...heck...I am a powerful woman!" in my moments of weakness throughout the race.
Kate and I had decided (stupidly) to start out at the front to get away from everyone at the start. I quickly realized that there were lots of 25-30 year-olds who were MUCH faster swimmers than me. I then also quickly realized that I was hyperventilating because I was so freaked out by the bodies churning the water beside me. I did some breast stroke and took some deep breaths and scooted over to the left side of the pack where there was much more room for me to swim. Looking back on my time I was only in the water for 24 minutes, which was far shorter than my training swims, which surprised me. The most difficult part of the swim was that the wind was blowing water into my mouth and I therefore ended up feeling nauseous as I ran from the lake to the transition area. About the last buoy (i had to look that stupid word up. booey? boie? buyie?) I discovered that if I turned almost all the way over to breathe I had a much better time, but of course that was too late. I loved when upon clambering out of the water I grabbed the hand of a volunteer and he asked my name and then announced to the crowd, "CHRISTINA EVERYBODY!" and the crowd cheered for me :)
The transition from swim to bike was not too difficult...I tried to get most of the dirt and grass off my feet (I had a towel near my bike) before I put my socks and shoes on to not much of an avail. I had pre-pinned my number to the shirt Danskin gave us so in about 5 minutes I was ready to go. The ride was pretty uneventful...I saw Sarah and K walking to the tri site as I headed out on my bike. There was a fantastic tail wind on the first long stretch and I rode easily, burping lake water the whole way.
Then, I came to my first hill, who I lovingly refer to as "Sneaky Bastard" because you come to a sharp right and BAM there's a hill - pretty much straight up. I giggled to myself as I heard fellow women turn the corner and mutter expletives that were not-so-ladylike as they came to grips with what was before them. I made it halfway up and walked when I could shift no lower. Thankfully a guy at the top had some yummy Clif goo for me to down which gloriously masked the lake water taste in my mouth. That was the first of two hills I walked the last bit of. Things that helped me get through the bike were singing Jimmy Eat World's "The Middle" to myself and my meandering mind. I tried to make sense of why so many women (approximately 3,000 at this race) would be so insane to spend money to do this to ourselves. I thought about what we as women go through and how good I felt on the bike after warming up on the swim and my will to continue was bolstered by the fact that a trying event had made me stronger and better on the current one.
But enough of the sappy allegories.
The transition from bike to run was a completely different story - by the time I got to my towel and changed shoes I could no longer feel my legs. I was also ticked because I couldn't find a bobby pin to control my bangs so had to furiously gather my hair into a bun on top of my head. Sarah and Kyle were there cheering me on and I grabbed Kyle and gave him what he describes as the most disgusting smooch of his life. I grabbed some yummy Sport Beans which are also, by the way better than burping lake water, and trotted off 'til I was sure K and Sarah could no longer see me, then I walked. I did SOME running - mostly interval stuff. I was shocked that the course was cross-country, and tried to run as much as I could. I was so FLIPPING exhausted at this point that all I wanted to do was stop but then women would run by and encourage me and I would start running again.
The Danskin folks have a really sick sense of humor because there is a pretty massive hill right before the end of the race. A woman I walked up next to said that she didn't think she could finish and I spent a good 10 minutes letting her know that if I didn't see her at the finish line I would carry her across myself. Someone else then came to her side and I trotted off a bit and ended up walking with another woman who was in a red tri suit. I don't even remember her name, but we started chatting and as other women would run past us and say "You guys are AWESOME!" we would turn to each other and say, "We ARE awesome!" and high five. We were delirious at this point so we started fantasizing about strawberry margaritas and joking about how super hot we would look crossing the finish line. About 200 yards from the finish she looked over at me and said, "How ya feeling?" and I replied, "Like running, you?"
Now, at this point I feel like I should pause and say how uniMAGINABLY exhausted I was. I mean, I had swam half a mile, biked 12, and nearly run a 5k, I could barely feel my legs and my brain was screaming, "You want to WHAT the last 200 yards?!?!" But we kicked it up and started running. The announcers turned on some Salsa music (just for me, of course) and Kate, who had finished about 15 minutes ahead of me, came to run across the line. The photos of this are fantastic - we were all 3 laughing and high-fiving each other the whole way :)
I hugged Kate and then I hugged K and immediately burst into big wet weepy tears - I'm even getting a little misty-eyed thinking about it. I had freaking done it. I was officially a triathlete. Get me some pasta. We were handed snacky bags but I got 3/4 of the way through a banana and nearly threw it up. The four of us packed up and headed out of the tri area, and K kept beaming at me and telling me how proud of me he was. I was still kind of in shock that I had actually made it through. Maybe I was stronger than I thought I was. That's what I liked about the tri - that the whole thing was something that no one else could do for me, that it was something I had to do all by myself...and I MADE it! I confessed to K that I was really glad I wasn't last (Sally Edwards is always the last woman across the finish line...she is awesome)...I finished way ahead of many folks, the whole thing done in about 2.5 hours.
I went home and showered and we went to a friends house for a cookout, and I ate way more than I thought was humanly possible...then I drove home and passed out. I slept very VERY well that night, of course I woke up and went to a free Austin Symphony concert out at the Long Center before seriously crashing out. Kate and I went to Central Market and got lots of yummies and ended up slightly tipsy on 6oz of canned champagne that evening.
A million pounds of love go out to the wonderful Miss Kate for being my training buddy, for leading the way, and for always believing in me. I wouldn't have been able to complete it nor would I have had nearly as much fun with out her.
So...that's it. There's a tri on labor day that I'm thinking about either actually doing or training for. For now I'm just working on running a few days a week and getting on my bike as much as possible. If anyone out there wants to do the Danskin next year, I will happily train with you. Kate and I decided loosely that we're going to work toward a 5 year plan of doing an Ironman. I'll be 30. That'll be a good enough excuse and I can do little races along the way.
Bring it.
I followed the advice in Real Simple today for repurposing glass bottles and came up with a super sweet centerpiece. I have other pictures of the actual various bottles...beer and pasta, mostly, with a small Starbucks liquor bottle thrown in for kicks.
