{ My First Triathlon }
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I decided to enter the Danskin Women's Triathlon after hearing good things about it from a friend. Danskin actually holds a series of triathlons, and the closest one to me was held in Austin, TX on June 8, 2003. Austin is only three hours away from my home in Houston, so I convinced my friends Cari, Becca, and Chris to enter, volunteer, and spectate (respectively) and off we went. This was my first triathlon, but it won't be my last. It was such a great experience!! The Danskin in particular has a reputation for being well-organized and very friendly to first-timers, both of which were important to me. The series is also all-female and I have to admit, that aspect made this race more appealing to me than others. There are definitely some pretty darn amazing women doing the Danskin--elite athletes, Ironman finishers, etc--but there are also a lot of normal women just like me...women who may not be in tip top shape, but who are excited and motivated and ready to say that they are a triathlete! The fact that I finished should be proof enough for anyone to see that they can do it too. The Austin Danskin is a sprint distance triathlon--a 0.75K lake swim (in Decker Lake this year), a 20K bike ride up and down some challenging Texas Hill Country hills, and a 5K run on a grass trail in Walter Long Park. This year there were almost 2,400 women in the race, and I finished #1214 overall in 1:56:56. My main goal had been simply to finish the race, so I was elated to finish in less than 2 hours. My time breakdowns were:
Here are some pictures of my friend Cari and me doing our first triathlons, and lots of comments on what was happening in each one!
Packet pick-up and bike check-in were held on Saturday, a day before the race on Sunday. We put our bikes on the assigned racks and made sure the tires were properly inflated, then headed down to the lake to check out the swim finish line. Above are Cari and Becca just after we'd tested the water temperature. It was almost perfect--not too cold, not too warm. The bikes stayed in the transition area overnight (the race provided security for them) and we brought the rest of our gear the next morning and set it up before the race began. The traffic was heavy getting into the parking lot and despite leaving almost an hour and a half before the start time, I was afraid we'd miss the gun. But we got to the starting area about 5 minutes before the gun, and as it turned out, we had to wait for a while anyway.
Here we are hamming it up for the camera in our oh-so-stylin' swim caps. Everyone had to wear them to distinguish between starting waves and to make everyone more visible in the water. And look at my race number written on my arm (it was also written on my thigh and calf)! That really made the whole thing feel official. :) With the exception of the "elite" women who were placed in the first group, we were organized by age, from oldest to youngest. This meant that Cari and I were way back in waves 20 and 21 (out of 24 total), and with 5 minutes between wave starts, we ended up sitting around for a while.
Cari's wave began, and my wave immediately followed them into the water. We got some last minute encouragement from Sally Edwards, one of the Danskin organizers, and then we took off in a blur of churning arms, legs, and water. I've heard that some people get freaked out in the swim, especially if they've never been in open water with a lot of other people. (Becca was volunteering as a "Swim Angel" and can confirm this; her job was to be in the water with a foam noodle and help/encourage/swim with anyone having trouble.) I
didn't feel panicky at all, as I've swum in lakes and in pools with
lots of other people before, but I was surprised at how surreal the
whole swim portion seemed. Picture this: you're in this lake, the water
is really cloudy and you can't see more than a couple feet in front
of you, you can't see the bottom, you have no idea how deep the water
is. What you can see is just this ugly shade of green fading
to black, and an occasional arm or leg or bubbles from someone kicking
in front of you. And you're often getting bumped or kicked or elbowed
by the other swimmers, and the current is pushing you off course. It
was pretty weird, but I just kep swimming. I'd been planning to do mostly
freestyle interspersed with some breakstroke resting breaks, but I quickly
found that it was easier to steer clear of other people and stay on
course if I just swam breaststoke. I ended up breaststroking probably
80% of the swim. I reached the end of the swim, climbed out of the water, and hurried up the hill into the transition area. I took it pretty easy in the transition, not really worrying about how it affected my time. In retrospect, I probably could have saved as much as 3 or 4 minutes if I'd planned ahead and hurried a bit more. In any case, I sat down on my towel, put on my shoes, then shorts and shirt, grabbed my helmet and sunglasses. As I was putting on my socks and shoes, Cari ran up. Her bike was only two racks over from mine, so I shouted hello to her. Even though I finished the swim slightly ahead of her, she zoomed through the transitions, and so we began the bike portion at the same time. Neither Chris or Becca were able to get any pictures of us heading out on our bikes, but we took the picture below after the race. Cari was riding my old hybrid bike (worn and torn from riding around campus at Stanford), while I was on my shiny month-old Specialized road bike.
Even though I'd driven the course the weekend before, the hills seemed much steeper when I was actually biking up them! Unfortunately, the problem was made worse by the fact that the gears on my bike were out of alignment (probably from being jostled on the back of Cari's truck the whole way from Houston to Austin), and Icouldn't used my 6 or 7 lowest gears because 1) using the lowest gear on the back while on the middle cog in the front made the chain fall off (this happened twice before I resigned myself to just not using that gear) and 2) the front derailleur wouldn't knock the chain up to the biggest cog (lowest gear). Grr!! As a result, Ihad to get off the bike and walk up the last portion of the two biggest hills. If I'd been smart enough to check my gears ahead of time and fixed the problem, I probably could have saved another 3 or 4 minutes. In any case, my gearing problems made the uphills unpleasant, but the downhills were great. I got going as fast as 31 miles per hour at one point!
I finished the bike portion and headed back into the transition area. I spotted Chris watching from the fence at the end of the bike course, and then saw Becca standing on the other side of the fence near my bike rack. We chatted briefly as I transitioned, and she took this series of pictures of me (and later Cari) putting my bike back on the rack, taking off my helmet, and heading out for the run. The run course was on a grass and dirt path leading winding through lots of trees and around the perimeter of the park.
I was about 10 minutes ahead of Cari (who was slowed mostly by riding my heavy, knobby-tire hybrid bike, but hey, it was better than riding her own mountain bike), and so Becca didn't get any pictures of me during the run. She did get this one of Cari approaching the first water station. After going up and down all the hills on the bike course, my legs felt like bricks. I walked almost the whole first mile, but soon started to feel a bit better. By the third mile, I was jogging most of the way. The third mile even featured a nice downhill portion to the bottom of the reservoir spillway...followed by a grueling uphill back to lake level. Ugh! Finally, I rounded a bend and saw the finish line about 0.3 miles ahead.
I jogged down the road along the shore of the lake and through a long tunnel of people cheering. I saw Becca cheering for me, and was even able to put on a burst of speed at the end to overtake a couple people. Ha! It was so exhilirating to run past all the cheering people, waving and clapping and shouting even though the race had been won more than two hours earlier (the winning time was 1:05:53). And then I was done, beating my goal time of two hours by a full 3 minutes--1:56:56! Chris was right at the finish line taking the pictures above, but I was so elated to be done that I didn't see him at all. I did a brief victory jig, grabbed water and bananas and made it back to the sideline in time to watch Cari finish in 2:12:20. (The clock time in the picture above is counting from the start of the first wave. That's why it says 3+ hours. Our actual times were recorded by the chips we wore on our ankles.)
Every finisher got a medal, which I thought was a really nice touch. After catching our breath, Cari and I headed back into the transition area one last time to pick up our bikes and other gear. We rode a slow mile back to the parking lot, and headed out for a nice big lunch. I'm so proud of myself for doing a triathlon, and I definitely plan to do it again next year. For more information on triathlons, check out any of the links below. I found them useful when I was preparing for my own first tri.
written
06.11.03 |
