Overpaying for wine: we’ve all done it. You know what else we’ve all done? Picked a bottle out of desperation, noticing it was on sale, because it had a funny label, because the clerk told you to, or because you were sick of trying to figure out which one to get. Now, here’s your chance to overpay for a bottle that someone else is going to tell you to get, for a good cause!

This year, I have again chosen to train with and fundraise for Team To End AIDS (T2), the charity training program for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. I’m training this summer with T2 to complete the Whirlpool Ironman 70.3 Steelhead race, in Benton Harbor, MI on Sunday, 19 Aug 2012. This race consists of a 1.2 mile swim in Lake Michigan — a swim that is so rough it has actually been canceled in two out of the past four Steelhead races (and I really hope it doesn’t get canceled this year, because honestly the swim is the only part I’m really good at) — followed by a 56 mile bike ride, finishing up with a 13.1 mile half marathon run. All in all, it’s 70.3 miles. When was the last time you woke up on the weekend and said, “Hey, self, you know what I really want to do? Go take eight hours and self-propel three different ways for over 70 miles, with no rest breaks?” In August, when it’s like 90 degrees with a billion percent humidity? And you know I’m going to forget the sunscreen! This race is really super hard…but it’s still easier than living with HIV/AIDS. Which is why I’m doing it.

But what does that have to do with wine, you ask? Well, I like wine, but I don’t know a lot about it. When I go to the store, I usually wind up buying whatever has an appealing description on the little index card taped to the shelf, what the clerk tells me to buy, the one that has a funny label, or if all that fails, whichever one is on sale. So I decided a while ago to join a wine club, so someone who actually knows what the heck they are doing would do all the shopping for me, and then one day there would be a box of wine at my door, and all the heavy lifting would be done for me, except for the literal heavy lifting. Except, as it turns out, I cannot be trusted with a wine club any more than I can be trusted with the BMG Music Club, as I never remember to tell them “please skip next shipment” in time, and so here I am with all this wine I can’t possibly drink because, oh yeah, with all this running and biking and swimming and whatnot, getting ready for my crazypants 70.3 race, I just don’t have the time to sit down and kill a bottle of syrah like I used to. Or, in the case of my current personal wine inventory, courtesy of the Virgin Wine Explorers Club, 22 bottles.

That’s where you come in!

(If you can believe it, that is not even all of it. I still have more. I just ran out of room on the tiny table.)

I have all these bottles of wine, and they need to find new homes. Homes where they can be loved, or at least drunk. Homes … elsewhere, not in my home. Because if I don’t have time to drink wine, I sure don’t have time to dust the dang bottles.

So, if you would like to adopt a bottle, take it home, hug it and squeeze it and name it George, or just drink it all down, here’s what to do: Go to my Team To End AIDS fundraising page, and make a donation of $35 or more.

You can come by to pick up from my home in the South Loop, or I can deliver it to you at work in the Loop or to your home in Chicago or nearby. If you’re in Central IL and don’t mind a delay, we can work something out. (Absence makes the wine grow deliciouser, or so I hear.) Varietals I have are Bordeaux, Syrah, Merlot, Zinfandel, Pinotage, Malbec … and other things of the red variety. They’re all delicious, or at least somebody at Virgin Wines thinks so. And, you know, it’s scientifically proven that we enjoy wine more when it’s expensive — so, maximize your enjoyment and donate today! The bigger your donation, the better the wine! IT’S SCIENCE! And also tax-deductible!

Donate here!

The AIDS Foundation of Chicago is a 501(c)3 organization, and they work to secure healthcare, housing, and help for those affected by the epidemic and to prevent the further spread of HIV/AIDS, in Chicago, the state of Illinois, and beyond. You should check them out at http://aidschicago.org/

First, I picked up Swim, Bike, Run, Laugh!: A Lighthearted Look at the Serious Sport of Triathlon and the Ironman Experience, by Dan Madson. This is a short one, and it only took me maybe an hour to read. It’s not the sort of laugh-out-loud comedy of something like Trizophrenia: Inside the Minds of a Triathlete (which I highly recommend, and quote the line about five-to-ten minute socks from regularly), but it’s more along the lines of a gently humorous memoir. So, from the title, the “lighthearted” bit is more correct than the “laugh” bit — it had a few laugh out loud moments, but mostly it was the sort of smile-to-yourself kind. It was a slightly less manic volume of the “humorous Ironman experience” than How Triathlon Ruined My Life. Not bad, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to read it.

The second read of the night was a 1985 book called Triathlon, Lifestyle of Fitness: Swim! Bike! Run! and billing itself as “A Complete Training Guide to the Sports Phenomenon of the 80s!” So obviously it’s 25 years out of date, but I was curious to see how things had changed — what sort of anecdotes about the sport there’d be, or how training advice would have changed, over that time and especially after the popularization of the sport.

It’s actually not all that bad, as it turns out, in terms of training advice — with at least one major exception — and it’s kind of fun to read the anecdotes and especially the section about bikes — probably the only book I’ve read that talks about sew-up tires at all, and definitely the only one to baffle me by talking about clincher tires as “wired on” (I kept picturing wire wrapped around the tire holding it to the wheel).

Some of the photos are really great. From the photos you’d think that, in the 80s, all races were sponsored by either Crystal Light or Bud Light (wonder if they still handed out cola at the aid stations?). The author talks about having a special, custom one-piece suit made because he had a theory that having a single outfit to wear and not having to take “pit time” to change from a swimming outfit to a biking one could make the difference between winning or not — and mentions that the other athletes treated that idea with skepticism. So that’s kind of an interesting throwback if you’ve only ever competed in recent tris: imagine people actually wholesale changing clothes in transition! That no-nudity rule becomes even funnier.

Most of the training advice seems usable, actually, which surprised me. (I guess that’s the problem with making assumptions about old books.) There was some flat-out bad advice about hydration — “Water: You Can Never Get Enough,” discouraging athletes from drinking sports drinks because he says it’s impossible to sweat out the micronutrients that they claim to replace, and pooh-poohing salt tablets as unnecessary. Maybe hyponatremia hadn’t been discovered to be a real problem in endurance athletics then, because it was still an emerging and relatively unpopular sport? — and the food stuff was out-of-date with regard to modern endurance nutrition products (though it’s understandable why he’d advise you to keep bananas and other actual food handy, since there was no gel and he wasn’t drinking Gatorade).

But apart from that, there is a lot of decent stuff. He talks about the importance of cadence on the bike, especially spinning at high RPMs even though it feels weird (and the importance of not mashing because of the ineffectiveness and potential for injury), and how to use the entire pedal stroke to generate power (using clips rather than clipless pedals, of course, but the principle still applies). Some of the swim stroke advice is outdated (e.g., the S-shaped stroke is out of vogue these days, though I personally am still trying to break the 20-year habit), but who learns to swim from a book anyways? And he does advise people to find a coach or join a masters team to get real guidance. The running section explicitly advises a midfoot or heel strike, so at least that’s half correct by modern (fore- or midfoot strike) standards, and for whatever it’s worth, the reasons he advises against a forefoot strike are the same injury factors (Achilles, calves) that people caution you about when you start out a barefoot/natural/good form running program. And quite a bit of the advice is word-for-word still applicable, especially the parts about having all your stuff organized for transition so you don’t forget your shoes and have to run barefoot (oops), and not overtraining to burnout. Plus, the author talks about washing out of multiple Ironman races, so that goes a ways toward humanizing him and not making you think you’re reading something For The Serious Athlete Only™.

So, my honest assessment of this out of print, out of date training book? You could do worse. Seriously, if you’re a new triathlete on a budget, for about two bucks for a used copy, this isn’t a bad book (if you ignore the part about drinking endless gallons of plain water and never taking in any electrolytes). And the pictures are pretty good too.

I have the car rack, so I drove us out there. We decided that picking T. up at 4:45 from Logan Square would get us there when transition opened at 7AM, with it being about a 2 hour drive. I was actually running early when I left the house (SOMEONE CALL THE RECORD BOOKS, that is the first time that has happened in my entire life) and so I went to the Dunkin’ Donuts at Harrison and Wabash to get coffee. Bad decision. I called T. at 3:55 to see if she wanted one, then went inside. TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I left, coffee in hand. What happened, you ask? Dormrats. Dormrats happened. The fucking superdorm inhabitants, and 2 E 8th inhabitants, and Polk/Plymouth Columbia dorm inhabitants, and and and. Like little drunken, indecisive fleas. Since it was 4AM, only one woman was working at DD. That poor, poor woman. I can only hope she’s not always the one stuck with the drunk idiot children.

Anyways. So. 4:15 (4:15!!!! FOR TWO COFFEES!), I left and headed up to T.’s, and got there at 3:35. She came out, we got her bike on the rack and headed out. Dodged drunks the whole damn way to South Bend — it was not even funny, how badly people were driving. Best of all was when a CPD car came from out of nowhere headed toward the Skyway, bypassing the two clearly-drunk assholes that I’d carefully gotten past so that the accident they inevitably caused would be behind me rather than in front, and blew past me doing at least 100. T. was wearing her heartrate monitor at the time and her heartrate jumped from about 55 bpm to over 120. No joke. Thanks, CPD, your shit driving scared me more than the drunken assholes you failed to pull over. But we continued onward, and everything was great until we stopped at a BP for gas about 20 miles away from the race, and T. came out of the gas station and asked, “What time is it?”

I glanced at my watch, then paled and said, “FUCK! EASTERN TIME ZONE!”

It was, of course, not 6:45 and 15 minutes until transition opened, with two hours to go until the race started, but in fact 7:45 and with only 45 minutes until transition closed, with check-in and chip pick-up and body marking to be done before then, not to mention the 20 minutes of driving through the country until we got there.

We got there at 8:05 EDT, took a few minutes to get our stuff and unrack the bikes, plus air up T.’s tires as they were low, then got across the parking lot, at which point I realized I’d left my USAT card in the car and went back for it, then after T. finished checking in I went up and the cranky lady demanded my driver’s license, which I’d also left in the car (I can leave my wallet unattended in the locked car or unattended in the unlocked transition area, when I expect to finish dead last long after the others – hmmmm, tough choice), so I went back to the car a SECOND time. This time they let me have my race bib, and I went in to transition with 10 minutes left. This is actually slightly more time than I had at She Bangs, so I managed to lay everything out neatly and cover it up with the trash bag I’d brought in case of rain, since it was merrily raining all over everything. We put on our wetsuits and went out to test the waters and wait for the pre-race talk.

The race was tiny. TINE-EE. According to the results, they had 91 people in the sprint, and 47 of us in the long course. Which is like 25 more people than they had last year. But it was actually really nice to be part of a small race. Sure, I was guaranteed to be dead last, but it didn’t take me five minutes to find my bike and get out on the run, THANK YOU, CHICAGO TRIATHLON, AHEM.

Anyways, we did make it to the start without any drama more serious than Cranky Drivers License Lady, so all was well. The water was ZOMG FREEZING — honestly, I think it was colder than the 62°F Lake Michigan water I swam a mile in on Saturday; it was okay once I started swimming, but waiting in the water for the airhorn was brutal — and my interpretation of the race course was, let’s say, … non-traditional.

So the swim course was 1000m, and a rectangle out and back:

o----o----o
|         |
|         |
o         o
|         |
|         |
F         S

This is how I swam it:

      /-----\
o----o        \
|               \
|                 >
o               /
|             /
|          /
F         S

I’m pretty sure it started out OK, but then a few seconds in I thought I should give T., on my immediate left, a little space, so I went right a tad, and then I just sort of … kept going. I totally forgot to sight at all, and I was in the zone, so I was well out there by the time I remembered to look where I was going, and I glanced left and realized that all the other swimmers were at least fifty yards away. I adjusted course and swam and swam and swam and swam back and it seriously took me the entire rest of that leg to make it back to the pack. Then I rounded the buoy wide and finally got back into the inside of the course, but if I didn’t add at least 150 yards to my swim, I’ll eat my swim cap. It’s hard to be too mad, since it’s my own damn dumbass fault for not looking where I was going, which is basically the first thing anyone tells you to do when you get taught open water swimming, though. I like to think that the lifeguards were sitting there playing rock-scissors-paper to see who had to go get me and keep me from swimming out to the ocean.

My official swim time was 20:03, and my swim was 5th among female swimmers. If I hadn’t taken my little detour, I imagine I would have finished at least 2 minutes (if not 3) faster, and I might even have challenged the first place female swimmer, who had a time of 17:53. Grrrrrrrrrr. Stupid sighting, why are you so easily forgettable?!?!

Then I ran up the beach up to transition, found my rack with no trouble (I love you, blue painter’s tape!), and went out on the bike, where every single other long course competitor except one proceeded to pass me. But that’s okay. There was one obnoxious hill right at the start (to put space between competitors. Because there were just so many of us?), then two loops of a somewhat hilly course. It was really gorgeous. A very pretty state park, and a beautiful place to stage a race, especially for a slowpoke like me who has the time to appreciate the surroundings, haha. I averaged 15.1 mph, which beats my Chicago time, so I’m pretty happy about that. Not sure if it was the CompuTrainer classes or just having my front brake fixed so it’s not rubbing on the rim, or what, that helped me pick up the pace without feeling more whipped, or maybe it was just that the weather was cool instead of warm, but anyways, I felt good about the bike.

…that is, until I got back to bike in and the dang DJ was playing the Macarena. Really, people. It’s not 1995 anymore. LET IT DIE!

So then, changed into running shoes and off to the run. This was, as promised, a nature trail hike through the woods. It’s worth saying that they told me so, but I didn’t believe them. I had dithered over whether to bring my regular running shoes or my trail running shoes, but I hadn’t run any trails since April at Starved Rock, and hadn’t trained in the trail shoes, and you know, the first commandment, “don’t do anything new on race day,” so I went with my regular running shoes. I think I would have been happier in my trail running shoes. Oh well. Then — hills. Hills, hills, hills. The run was not flat. My poor Chicago legs were sad. My poor Chicago quads were registering complaints with the union. It was amusing. It turned rapidly from a run into a hike. I ran the flats, picked my way carefully down the downhills (some of which were steep, most of which were littered with wet leaves, and all of which were muddy and slick), and strode up the uphills. My time on the run was utter, utter garbage. I seriously had a 15:58 pace, it was ridiculous. But, I didn’t break an ankle, and I finished stronger than I started. And, maybe more importantly, I really enjoyed my quiet little hike by myself in the woods, and it made me want to go back out to Starved Rock and do some more trail running through the muddy woods, so I think that is actually a total win.

And, as for being dead last. Well, first of all, someone has to be last, and at least I expected to be last so it’s not like I was going to be all upset and sad and crying my eyes out about the shame, the shame, the shaaaaaaame of it all. Besides, last person to finish a triathlon still fucking finished a fucking triathlon, so whatever, couch potato critics. Last place still gets a finisher’s medal! Ha!

And then — I got second place in my division! So I finished dead last, in the rain, AND I STILL PODIUMED. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. I rule!

So, I really liked the Tri the Creek, and I would totally do it again next year. I would do some trail running beforehand, and not just the nice smooth asphalt of the lakefront trail, and I would wear my trail running shoes. I would try really hard to remember to sight frequently and not attempt to swim to Ohio by accident. And I would remember that I’m going to lose an hour in the drive there, so plan departure times appropriately. 3 Disciplines put on a good race (even though all those fancypants sub-3 hour elites ate all the food before we finished), and I would totally do another of their races. Who knows, maybe I won’t be last place, next year!

This is the post I’ve been planning, and dreading, all season. Oh yes – the part where I tally up that list of everything I bought this year. Well, everything I remembered to write down, anyway. Here goes nothing!

Race Entry Fees – Total: $848

South Shore Triathlon: $102
Chicago Triathlon: $188
SheROX Naperville Triathlon: $85
She Bangs Triathlon: $95
Bunny Rock 5k: $44
Ravenswood Run 5k: $42
Proud to Run 5k – $31
C4 Miles: $34 (+ $10 donation)
Fleet Feet New Balance Women’s 10k: $32
Elvis is Alive 5k: $27 (+$10 donation)
Illinois Tour de Donut: $25
Bike the Drive: $54
Hot Chocolate 15k: $69

Next year: Only do South Shore and SheROX sprint tris; do not register separately for Chicago and let T2 handle that. Budgeted for 4 5k-type races at $40 a pop, plus Elvis is Alive. Drop Tour de Donut. Drop She Bangs in the incredibly disgusting Bangs Lake. New budget: $450.

Memberships/Training/Etc – Total: $965
T2EA pre-season Indoor Triathlon: $175
T2EA Chicago Triathlon: $75
CARA 2 year membership: $79
USAT 1 year membership: $39
CES Open Water Swimming 10 week class: $227
Get a Grip Cycles bike fitting (so so so worth it!!): $270
TriMonster post-season CompuTrainer class: $100

Next year: definitely T2 indoor tri and regular season tri. Won’t need a new bike fitting, won’t take the open water class that I never got to go to because the Park District forced a rescheduling that didn’t work for me. Won’t have to renew CARA, will have to renew USAT. Will probably do another post-season class of some kind. New budget: $390.

Clothing – Total: $621
Pearl Izumi tri shorts: $40
3 Adidas tech t-shirts: $20
3 The Finals swimsuits: $60
Aerotech Designs tri shorts and bike shorts: $73
Moving Comfort sports bra: $20 (clearance! wooohoooo!)
Moving Comfort shorts and sports bras: $150
Bike Nashbar bike gloves: $5
Moving Comfort sports bra: $50
Blueseventy Reaction Wetsuit: $120 (super awesome T2 discount, plus Fleet Feet rewards points – got this for less than half price! score!)
Zoot tri top: $30 (woohoo again for clearance!)
Nike singlet: $13
Speedo Vanquisher goggles: $15
Pearl Izumi bike gloves: $25

Next year: Will definitely need bras, but am good on shirts. Will need at least another pair of long compression tights for cold-weather running. Will also need warm wool socks for cold weather. Will probably need two pair of bike shorts, a windbreaker shell of some sort, and estimating 3 swimsuits and one pair of goggles. New budget: $415.

Accessories – Total: $1,440
Polar FT-7 heartrate monitor: $110
Chamois Butt’r: $12
Travel Trac II bike trainer, frame pump for bike, Clean water bottle: $203
Chamois cream and goggles anti-fog spray: $25
Foam roller: $24
Floor tire pump: $28
Cateye wireless bike computer: $60
Bike gel seat cover: $10
Floor tire pump that does not destroy valves: $25
Tifosi Root Beer sunglasses: $40
Sportwash: $10
Shimano SPD pedals, pedal wrench: $73
Shimano SPD-SL/SPD shoe adapter: $25
Bike shoes for spinning bikes: $45
Shimano SPD-SL pedals: $44
Bike multitool: $10
Allen wrench set: $6
Cateye Strada Double Wireless bike computer: $100
Water bottle cage: $10
Pedro’s Toothbrush: $6
Bike chain cleaner/lube: $11
CO2 inflator and cartridges: $32
3-bike rack for car: $160
iPhone armband: $20
Hydration belt and spare bottles: $40
2 pair of Yankz: $14
Clip-on electronic metronome: $14
TriSlide: $12
Bodyglide: $12
Brave Soldier antiseptic, lubricant: $25
SuitJuice: $15
The Stick: $50
Compression socks, compression leg sleeves: $90
Race number belt: $8
“Insurance” pair of Tifosi Root Beer sunglasses: $40
Bike chain cleaner kit: $30

Holy fucking shit. Next year: is there anything left in this category TO buy??? – Will need more lube, probably TriSlide, Bodyglide, and Brave Soldier. Will probably need another bottle or two of goggle anti-fog spray. Might buy a handheld water bottle for running, will probably need to grab a couple bike water bottles. May buy a chip band. At least I’m pretty well set on electronic gadgetry, as long as I don’t fuck up and lose my bike computer a second time (ugh, that SUCKED). New budget: $200.

Books – Total: $100
Triathlon for Ordinary Mortals, The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer – $28
Training Weight: $12
Off Season Training: $4

Well now. Obviously I just wasn’t writing these guys down, since I have at least several other books. So I’m just doubling what I put down, as my real amount spent this year. Next year: Will probably be similar. New budget: $100.

Shoes – Total: $300
Brooks Adrenaline GTS 11: $100
Nike Zoom Structure: $100
Vibram Five Fingers Sprint: $100

My current shoes should get me through my half-marathon in January with no problem. After that, I may have to buy three more pair through 2012. New budget: $300.

Nutrition – Total: $100
This one’s just an estimate. But I think it’s a pretty good one.

Will probably be about the same next year, as well. New budget: $100.

All told, I spent — at least — $4400 this year on my triathlon pursuits, not counting my $1500 bike, the gas to drive to suburban races, or the amount of my fundraising minimum I’m going to have to pay out of pocket to T2 if I don’t raise the rest. So my $2000 budget for next year is looking pretty rosy, in comparison. Also, I will have some more Fleet Feet rewards points to use, and my REI dividend should be nice and fat next year, so hopefully those will stretch the budget a little extra.

It could always be worse. I hear the average that people spend to compete in an Ironman is $15,000…

If you click through to the Flickr photo and hover your mouse over the times, you can see notes with all my goals for my times. If you don’t want to do that, let me just say: I nailed those suckers. Woo!

I should write a real race report later, but I’m pretty tired right now. (I’ve been up for 15 hours, and I spent 4 of those endurance racing, another one getting to and from the endurance race, and 15 minutes sitting in a shallow tub of ice water. It’s been a long day.) So here are the highlights:

SWIM
OMG, WTF, BBQ. So Hurricane Irene was torturing New Yorkers (or at least it was supposed to, to listen to some of them banging on about it. Like my friend Natalie said, if there was a Lake Michigan hurricane that came in and blasted Chicago, the only news coverage we’d get would be “Make sure you have a canoe, and allow extra travel time to get to work tomorrow.” But I digress.), but meanwhile, some tendrils of it were stretching across the continent and stirring up crap around here (or at least I am blaming Irene for this crap). We had a forecast that called for winds out of the north-northeast at 15-23 mph through the early morning to the afternoon, and that came true. The lake was incredibly choppy — not wavy; wavy is different. This was just a hot mess of unpredictable, fast, short, and randomly directional waves. Plus, the swim route was shaped like a letter J, where the first 1/4 mi was south, then you did a U-turn around a buoy and came north for the remaining 3/4 mi. The winds were NNE. The water was moving SSW. We got to swim against that. It was the crazy icing on top of the flailing, splashing, kicking bumper cars madness of the swim.

I admit that, after my blog post the other day about the tri, I felt a little bad for that offhand crack about kicking people back if they kick me. I’m kind of a girl scout, so I was all “I shouldn’t say that, it’s meeeeeean to kick people.” After experiencing the Chicago Triathlon swim start in that water? Fuck that noise. You kick me, I kick you back. I seriously got through that batshit swim using a few advanced swimming techniques: 1) bilateral breathing. It was really important to be able to breath on both sides, not just the side I was most comfortable on, because that side was into the rising sun and the rising waves, so switching was really killer; 2) Rotation – I was able to kick my rotation way up more than I usually do in the pool, so I could get my face farther out of the water to breathe without inhaling water; and 3) mentally referring to anyone who pissed me off in any fashion, like the guy who couldn’t swim straight and kept swimming into my left side and pushing me out towards the boats so that I actually stopped and trod water long enough to let him get totally in front of me so I could get on his left side instead, as “green-cap fucksticks.” I’m sure that most people in the wave before mine, such as the two T2EA athletes who are obviously superior in every way, are very nice people, but a lot of them are very aggressive yet inept swimmers, aka “fucksticks,” and that wave had green caps, so the epithet “green-cap fuckstick” was coined. There were a few green-cap fucksticks wearing other colored caps, but I was trying to not inhale water, so I stuck with what worked: green-cap fucksticks. Oh, there were so many green-cap fucksticks. I think my on-goal swim time despite the water conditions working against me was largely due to my immense desire to get the hell away from all the other swimmers.

Then there was the 450 yard dash up the crumbly asphalt to transition. After I’d already been walking around all morning barefoot, including the 3/4 mi walk from transition to the swim start and a half-hour wait in line for a porta-potty, because I decided not to bring flip flops. DO NOT MAKE THIS MISTAKE. IT IS A HURTY ONE. And, oh yeah, the time for this gets applied to your official swim time. I did splits, and this took 4 minutes, which means my swim time was 39m, which was under my 40m goal, so HA, take that, stupid asphalt. Ow, my poor feet.

T1
I actually rocked this one. I ran across the grass (sweet cool, cool, soft grass…) and through the route I’d scouted and walked earlier, found my row with no trouble (it RULES having the rack row with the recycling bins at both ends), found my bike with no trouble (thanks to it having a big bunch of red silk flowers on the stem, the blue masking tape arrow on the ground, and oh yeah, it was second from the end nearest bike out/bike in), toweled my feet off to attempt to get the dried cut grass off (which failed), threw my helmet on, rolled my socks on, put my shoes on, pulled my bike gloves out of my shorts legs (oh yeah, did I mention I forgot to leave my bike gloves in transition, which I realized when I got to the swim start, and my feet hurt so much I said “fuck it” to walking them back to transition, so I just shoved one inside each shorts leg before I put my wetsuit on), and ran for bike out. A volunteer and several spectators publicly admired my flowers, I shoved my gloves in my teeth, mounted the bike, and headed for the ramp up to Lake Shore Drive. I got up the ramp, over the bridge over the river, and once we had settled a little I pulled my gloves on. I like to think that it makes me look coordinated that I can pull that off – putting my gloves on with my teeth while biking in a straight line. I probably just look like some idiot who forgot to put her gloves on in transition. Whatever. It totally saves me like 45s in T1, so I’ll take the idiot look.

Then… oh yeah. Irene. Fucking Irene and her fucking bullshit headwind. What the hell. The first leg took me 30 minutes. I was Not Happy – 30 minutes x 4 legs = 2 hour bike; my goal was 1:45 atmost. But the headwind was transformed into a tailwind for the return south, which I forgot to hit the split button to stop when I turned around at Chicago Ave, but it was certainly a lot easier to bike. Then the turn back north, into that bitching bullshit headwind. I seriously was going up overpasses at like 10 mph, it was sad. (OTOH, those moments gave me opportunities to pass slowpokes and people on mountain bikes, so that was happy. I also passed one woman riding a bike with a full rack and two saddlebags, but I told her as I went that riding with the saddlebags made her super hardcore, so I don’t count her as a slowpoke.) The second and third legs combined were 46:35, which made me happy because I that meant my first south leg was 20m, which is way better than 30, and meant I could hopefully still manage under 1:45. The second leg south took me 26, and then I was back at transition. I deliberately let the gas out a little more on the last lap – telling myself this is my last race of the season, I don’t have to save anything up for tomorrow or later this week. I don’t know how much of an effect that had, but it was some nice mental encouragement.

I will say, I had a WHOLE lot of fun watching the traffic going the opposite direction and spotting people in T2EA jerseys and cheering for them. Also, I had a few riders tell me, usually while passing me, that they liked my flowers. So honestly, the bike was basically just full-on entertainment. I probably inhaled a thousand tiny insects just because I was grinning like a dork the whole time.

T2
My goal for this was 3m, which I didn’t make, even a little. I think it’s basically because there were a lot of people in the aisle trying to find their racks (again, recycling bin FTW) so I had to go at the pace of those in front of me, and transition was huge. I’m not sure why else it took me 5 freaking minutes. I pretty much took off my shoes, took off my gloves, pulled on my running shoes, slammed on my TriMonster visor, clipped on my race belt, and ran for run out. Granted, run out was a big twisty maze to get to (I should have retraced my swim in steps, but instead I went down the aisle outside and I think it made the route longer than it needed to be. But that was autopilot: that was how I walked to swim out, when I walked the route in transition. Next time, walk out the full transition, not just inspecting the ins/outs and scouting landmarks.

Run
Oh my. My good intentions to do the race as run 20m, walk 3m repeats failed immediately. I ran for like 3 minutes, then walked for 3. Then I ran for like 2, and walked for 3. It was a quick and humbling flameout. I don’t mean I hit the wall or anything, but I definitely had to mentally eat some humble pie about how well I’d be able to run off the 25mi bike. I wound up run/walking the entire course. My first mile was the slowest, and second mile the second slowest, though, so I did get better, and settled into a 14:30 average pace, down from a 15:07 average over the first two, so that’s ok. Not the 13:45 I had hoped for, but it’s not like it’s a crisis if I finished 5 minutes later. Besides, doing my second 10k as part of my first ever international triathlon – I think I’m entitled to guess wrong about how my legs might feel. Next time I’ll know better, and will have trained more. So it’s a learning experience.

I will say that the spectators along the run were fantastic. There were some really great signs – “Spandex makes you sexy!” and a few others. I tried to tell the signholders that I appreciated their work when I saw something good. I must have high-fived at least a dozen kids along the way, too.

The run took me back past the T2 tent at swim start (backed up against the run route at about .75 mi), did a little dance for them, then got about 10 high-fives and immeasurable cowbell, which was totally sweet. Seriously, I bet more than one person left that race today going “man, I’m training with T2 next year.” We were all yelling encouragement at each other the whole time. It was superfantastic. Spotting other T2 competitors and cheering them was like half the fun of my race – cheering them on kept me going. Them cheering me on kept me going well. :)

But I also was really buoyed by some friends who came out to watch me compete. Sean and Steph, of course, were there from the start – Steph came over to hug me while my wave was queued up waiting to jump in the water, and they spotted and cheered me at bike in, run out, and were waiting for me at the T2 booth after the finish. Sean also took some amazing photos. Liam was waiting for me at the Lake Shore Drive underpass just before finish, and then he ran around and met me after the finish. Trish was on the run route just the other side of the first T2 tent. Craig took some photos of me right after the finish and hung out for a while with me. And John brought his bike and cheered for me at bike in plus about three spots along the run! You guys all rule. Seriously, it meant a whole lot to have friends out there cheering for me. :)

Ok… that’s the totally superficial race recap. Now… I AM GOING TO SLEEP!

So anyone who is planning to come out to spectate — read the official spectator guide. This is what I will be doing:

My bib number is 4639, and I am in Wave 30. That means my start time is 8:14 AM. Don’t try and pick me out of a crowd of swimmers; we’ll all be in black wetsuits and my wave all in white swim caps, so we’ll basically look like a crowd of clones. Just stand back and watch the sloshing and flailing at the crazy swim start, and think good thoughts about me not getting kicked in the head, or at least, if I do get kicked in the head, that I swim fast enough to kick them in the head right back.

I estimate my swim time will be between 35-45 minutes for the mile, so that puts me running (ha) the 450 yds from the water up to transition at around 8:50AM or so. This would be an excellent opportunity to take embarrassing photos to blackmail me with later, except that triathlon has caused me to lose all sense of shame and you can’t embarrass me this way anymore. (Spandex bike shorts do that to a person. Not to mention that this is a sport where they have to explicitly state in the rules that nudity is not allowed in the transition area. Just imagine what was going on before they decided to throw that one in.) T1, the transition between the swim and the bike, I think will take me like 5 minutes. I don’t really know how long that 450 yd run is going to take, and if it’s gravel I might be a pretty princess who doesn’t want to run and hurt her pretty princess feets on it.

On the bike, you should be able to spot me because my bike will have a big bunch of flowers on the front stem. Like this, except I bought a bunch of red flowers specifically for race day. Team To End AIDS, red ribbons, red jerseys, red flowers… it’s a thing. Anyways, look for the bike with red flowers. You’ll be able to spot it because all the skinny people looking all serious and intent on their aerobars will be zooming past, while my flowers are the complete antithesis of aerodynamics. But they are race legal, I have it from USAT rules officials, so suck it, aero nerds!

The bike leg is two loops of Lake Shore Drive, north from Randolph up to Foster, back down to Chicago, back up to Foster, then back down to the yacht club, for a total of 40k (24.8 mi). I am guessing this will take me between 1:30 and 1:45, depending on how much lollygagging I do. I am going to try to average 14-15 mph the whole time, but I may or may not. I don’t think I’ll be able to sustain any more than 16, and that would leave me with nothing left for the run. So we’ll see how well the plans work out.

T2 should be nice and quick since it’s just a change of shoes and hat, so that’ll probably be about 3 minutes.

The run is south along the bike trail to the south end of McCormick Place, then around and up Columbus to the finish. It’s a 10k (6.2 mi), which will only be my second ever 10k race. My first, last, and only previous 10k I completed in 1:24. Because I will be pretty tired from the bike, I’m estimating this one will take me, again, between 1:30 and 1:45 to complete. I’m going to try and do a 13:30-13:45 pace, which would put me at about 1:27-1:29, but I have a bad habit of going too hard on the bike and not leaving myself with much on the run, and of course I’m not that experienced with the 10k distance, so we’ll just have to see.

Best case finish time: 3:45, or roughly noon.
Probable finish time: Around 4:00-4:10, between 12:15-12:30.
Worst case finish time: 4:25, or 12:40 PM.

You can watch my progress on the athlete tracker, or as I like to say, The Niquitron! I have no idea how it works, if it’s accurate, or anything. They just gave me the URL and I am parrotting it. Look, it has a clock on it! And yes, there’s an app for that: iPhone and Android.

Anyone coming to spectate to support me, if you plan on hanging out by the finish, I would encourage you to find the Team To End AIDS group and hang out there. First of all, they’re going to be more experienced at spotting T2 runners coming through the chute, like me. Second, they’re going to go batshit crazy with cheering and cowbells for every single T2 athlete, and that is A WHOLE LOT OF FUN to do. They should be easy to find — they’ll be the crowd of people in bright red shirts.

Also, while you’re out on the course, cheer for any T2 athlete you see — not just me! Just yell “GO T2″ and woooo and shake your cowbell for them. They’ll appreciate it even if they don’t know who you are. We all worked really hard for this, so it is totally appropriate to cheer us all on!

And of course, if you have extra money burning a hole in your pocket — feel free to send it to the AIDS Foundation of Chicago by sponsoring me here! I’m almost halfway to my goal of $3000 and I would really love to make it a bit closer by race day. It’s all tax deductible, and gets you loads of priceless brownie points with me.

Last – THANK YOU to everyone who has supported me for the past year. This has not really been easy for me, not least the weekend mornings spent getting up at 3AM, Sundays running six-plus miles in the middle of the day so I can get acclimated to running in the heat, trying lots of different varieties of “nutrition,” some more gross than others, the learning about what IT band tightness, shin splints, and hip bursitis feel like, the learning that sweat in your eyes frigging burns… It turns out that this is hard work! And I think we all know, my idea of hard work involves reading a complicated lace knitting pattern. But it’s been worth it, I really have enjoyed this entire year a lot, I’ve met some really fantastic people through Team To End AIDS, and we’ve raised some money for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, which is a wonderful organization that helps people throughout the entire state of Illinois. And every time one of you sends me an email saying “Hey! Your race is Sunday! What’s your bib number so I can spot you,” it’s a huge boost of encouragement. So thank you, all of you, because every single one of you guys is awesome like a hundred billion hot dogs!

Love,
–sabrina

Anyways, I went to Foster Beach and found the T2 folks and we all completely rocked everything the hell right out, I did my mile swim and my baby bike ride (5 point something miles – wee bitty baby bike ride!) and my 5k up and down the lakefront, and THEN WE TOTALLY GOT FINISHER’S MEDALS, WHICH WAS AN AWESOME FABULOUS SURPRISE AND MINE IS TOTALLY ALREADY TACKED UP ON THE WALL BECAUSE THAT IS HOW MUCH I LOVE IT, and then we were all slowly trickling out and I talked to S. briefly about our plans for tomorrow — because we signed up for a non-mock tri, a sprint distance triathlon in Wauconda tomorrow morning, which will be fun except that I didn’t realize, when signing up, that Steelhead was the same day and that means I am going to be totally late getting over there to cheer on my T2 teammates and my buddy L., but anyways — and then I decided that since we were going to be going straight from Wauconda to Michigan, I was going to go over to Jewel and buy some bottled water and stuff. Because I had the car I wasn’t going to bother to go home and change first, so I actually — hahaha, I still can’t believe this part — went to Jewel still in my soggy tri shorts and sweaty bike jersey and I had no purse or anything so I just stuffed my wallet up my shorts leg (which, if you haven’t worn bike shorts, is a completely valid alternative to a pocket – for lip balms or maybe a gel packet or something. A wallet might have been pushing the boundaries a little more than normal) and grabbed a cart and went into Jewel.

This is how the trip started: I am not hungry. I am going to grab a flat of water and some bananas or something. Ok, cool. Grab cart. First aisle, eggs and frozen stuff. GOD IT’S COLD. Do I need eggs? NO! Do I need cheese? YEAH OKAY, GRAB IT AND GO. Do I need — NO! IT’S TOO COLD IN THIS AISLE! GO! … walk into snacky aisle. I should get some pretzels. Pretzels are valid post-race snacks. They have salt. WHAT KIND OF PRETZELS? THERE ARE TOO MANY! I AM CONFUSED BY CHOICES! think…think… after the race Thursday, N. had some pretzels…they were sticks! OKAY! PRETZEL STICKS IT IS! GOD IT’S COLD! And now I’m getting kind of hungry. Hey, I got some cheese back there. I need crackers. Water crackers… yeah. I want rosemary. I WANT ROSEMARY WATER BISCUITS. WHERE IS THE ROSEMARY?! DAMMIT JEWEL! Settle for sesame water crackers. Eye other snackies… decide that no, chips are not valid post-race snackies the same way pretzels are. Successfully depart snacky aisle. Pass peanut butter aisle… think, oh, peanut butter is totally post-race food! I totally saw the T2 marathoners eating peanut butter after their 14 mile run! Find organic creamy peanut butter and think… you know what goes with peanut butter? APPLES go with peanut butter. I should get some apples. Oh, and do I need coffee? I don’t know. Let me see if coffee is on sale… wander up coffee aisle, discover coffee is not on sale, decide to live dangerously. Then pass a Gatorade display! OH HEY, my favorite flavor! On sale! AWESOME! GIVE ME 3 8-PACKS OF IT! BECAUSE I’M TOTALLY THIRSTY NOW, I WANT TO DRINK IT ALL! RIGHT! NOW! … oh hey, there’s water. Ok, grab some water. On to the produce aisle. APPLES! APPLES ARE DELICIOUS! Except the red delicious kind, which are gross, so delicious is a lie, but whatever. Gala apples. I’m sharing, so how many should I get … 8! 8 seems like a totally reasonable number of apples to buy! I WILL BE SHARING! Also, I’m hungry. Oh, bananas. Ok, grab some bananas… OH APRICOTS, APRICOTS ARE MY FAAAAAAVORITE… I AM BUYING 8..NO, TEN! TEN! THEY’RE VERY SMALL! AND I WILL EAT 4 OF THEM AS SOON AS I GET HOME! APRICOTS APRICOTS APRICOTS! GOD I’M HUNGRY! oh, strawberries are on sale, and they’re not even all picked over. I should get some strawberries for my morning smoothies, I’m running low… 4 boxes of strawberries seems like a totally reasonable amount of strawberries… ok OH HEY LOOK, IT’S THE GOOD CHEESE. MMMMMMMM. I WANT BRIE! BRIE! FOR MY CRACKERS! Which would have been better if they were rosemary, stupid Jewel. But brie is still yummy… oh hey look, stilton! Stilton with cranberries! THAT SOUNDS DELICIOUS TOO! I AM GOING TO GET THAT TOO! TO HAVE WITH MY BRIE! AND MY CRACKERS! Except do I have enough crackers? Maybe I should look at bread. MAYBE THEY HAVE ROSEMARY BREAD! No… NO ROSEMARY!?!?!? DAMMIT JEWEL! WHAT IS YOUR BEEF WITH ROSEMARY?!?! … ok… no bread. Bread is boring without rosemary… oh HEY, they have BAGEL CHIPS! BAGEL CHIPS WITH SALT ARE TOTALLY LEGITIMATE POST-RACE FOOD, BECAUSE THEY HAVE SALT! … oh jeez, I have a cart full of gatorade, random fruit, cheese, and pretzels… this is not grocery shopping like normal people do it. I got progressively hungrier as I went through the store and I also got progressively more caps-lock impulse shopper… OH SHIT, ALL THOSE PSYCHOLOGISTS WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG!

Oh well. Fuck it. Those apricots are gonna be DELICIOUS, man. Maybe I’ll eat them with some stilton on water crackers!

Triathlon, though, is asking a lot. First of all, it requires me to get up off my ass with a much greater frequency than I am accustomed to. My workout habits prior to taking up running last year were basically “eh. Do I feel like it? Yeah? Okay.” or, more frequently, “Do I feel like it? Nah. Cool.” But now! Now? I have a schedule. A schedule I actually go out and make an effort to stick to. A schedule that includes two days a week where people notice if you’re not there. And, of my two off days per week? I actually want to do MORE workout stuff on one of them. It is remarkably difficult to respect recovery days, even after reading other people’s cautionary tales about overtraining and the consequences thereof. I mean, I am a lazy bum by nature. I point and laugh at gym bunnies from the couch, when I see them on tv. What the hell bizarro world did I wake up in that I’m a workout person now?

And these are not piddly, saddo workouts where you show up at the gym and do half-hearted bicep curls with 5 lb. weights for ten minutes, then do some crunches on a mat in the back corner where no one can see you. Every planned workout on my schedule, except one, involves two things: biking followed by running, or swimming followed by strength training. Tuesday’s group swim workout is the only easy day where you only have one item on your to-do list. I now approach the swiss ball and the foam roller with intent. Worst of all, I’m now the kind of person who feels let down if she misses a day. (Especially since I’ve missed two Thursday group bricks in a row due to work – argh!)

And then there’s the influence of all this on my music collection. It all started last summer when I started running, and discovered that Ke$ha made for really good running music. It doesn’t require any brainpower to listen to, and it was upbeat and amusing enough to make struggling up even that bastard hill south on the lakefront path coming up from under the Solidarity Drive underpass something even I could manage. I like Ke$ha now – I offer no excuses. This proceeded apace until I made the ultimate sacrifice of my music credibility to acquire more upbeat pop music to keep me running… Oh yes, I did it. I’m not proud. (I will say that, sorry kids, “Peacock” is fucking annoying, not clever — I had to untick that one in iTunes.) But… yeah. I don’t ask you to respect me after this confession of my radical loss of judgment, but just accept me for what I am… a lazy bum by nature who depends on other people’s perkiness (no matter how ridiculous) for motivation.

But while the crazy workout dependency seriously jeopardizes my self-image as a total slacker, and I’m hesitant to own up to the sudden Top 40 obsession in mixed company, those are not the only significant shifts I have undergone. For example:

I have a drag suit again – for the first time since the fall of 1994, my last year of high school competitive swimming. A drag suit, for the uninitiated, is a worn-out swimsuit (or you can buy a mesh purpose-specific suit) that is baggy and floppy, which you wear over a swimsuit that actually fits. The bagginess and floppiness creates drag in the water, meaning resistance, making it harder to swim. I traditionally wore drag suits to the point where all the spandex was gone and I could actually tie a knot in the excess fabric at the belly. This particular drag suit was unintentional: I bought the suit in February of this year, and I wore it only a dozen or so times before it started to show wear. Very disappointing — I used to get a full season’s swimming out of one suit, which was 5 days a week, often 2x/day, for three months. (NB: TYR is my favorite, or sometimes I wear Speedo, but this is from The Finals. Not sure I can recommend them, with this example as my first purchase from them. I have two other of their suits, in a smaller size, that I bought at the same time and am alternating, so we’ll see how long they last. I am going back to TYR next time though; no more experimenting.)

But it happened that I had dropped a few pounds and I needed a smaller suit then anyways, so I just continued wearing this one as a drag suit, so at least I can get some value out of it. The spandex has continued degrading at a nice clip (accellerated by my actively destroying it, by not washing chlorine out and by wringing the hell out of it), and it’s very nearly to the belly-fabric-knot point. This makes me oddly proud: I are a real swimmer! I show up wearing shit like this and don’t care if everyone around me is going, “why is she wearing a potato sack to the pool?” You may laugh at my potato sack, but I’ll be the one laughing when I take 10s off my 800m time!

I was doing the laundry the other day and caught myself thinking, “I should get another bottle of SportWash next time I’m at Fleet Feet; it’s only ten bucks.” This is significant because I am the sort of cheapass who sneers at Target or Jewel for asking $14 for a bottle of Tide, and waits for it to go on sale, because I think that $14 is ridiculous for a bottle of laundry detergent, and then, on top of that, I generally only use half the prescribed amount because I think the full capful is too much detergent and wasteful. (I also cut dryer sheets in half. Scrooge McLaundry, at your service.) Note that at $14/30 loads, 46¢ a load, the Tide is actually cheaper than the $10/20 loads, 50¢ SportWash. Logic may not be my strong suit here. (That said, the SportWash works way, way better than regular detergent at getting stank out of my workout clothes, which is no small thing to ask.)

This cabinet used to be full of soapmaking supplies. I had to find a new spot for a bunch of it so that I could make room for my bulk purchases of Gatorade and my massive 5 lb. bulk jug of whey protein powder. Yeah. I’m THAT jackass, now.

(Though, I’m not yet to the point of being the guy at work who has a FEEDSACK of whey protein powder under his desk. I’ve bought 28 lb. bags of cat food smaller than his protein stash, man.)

This is what I do for breakfast daily: 6-8 oz nonfat yogurt, protein powder, spirulina, stevia, 6-10 strawberries (depending on size), banana or two, soy milk to cover. It’s actually really, really tasty. The spirulina was one of those things where I was like, “oh, it’s a ‘superfood,’ huh? We’ll just see about that.” But it turns out that I really like it. It has this sort of fruity taste that works really well in a smoothie. Also, the “gross green health food” look really amuses me for some reason — I feel kind of like it’s straight out of a 70s show. The best thing about this smoothie, though, is that it’s a fantastic breakfast that keeps me from getting hungry until like 1 PM — which is great, because I can’t stand it when I eat at 7 and am hungry for lunch by 10:30. The smoothie lets me totally forget about eating until 12:30 or 1, and that makes me really happy. I don’t think it’s a particularly low calorie health food — I’m guessing that it’s around 500 kcal or so, not that I actually measure anything — but it gets me fruit and protein and calcium and freaky green health food entertainment value, so I’m happy.

And lastly…

My idea of appropriate interior decoration for the home has expanded to include “beat-up, raggedy pieces of Tyvek.”

I can’t wait to see what next crazy effect triathlon has on my life.

8:30.69.

I remember working really hard to cut that time down to about 7:00, and I think I might have broken 7:00 once or twice — which isn’t actually that impressive for that particular event, but it was my personal best and screw the rest. But I don’t definitively remember any times but that one.

It was the 1991 District 150 JV Invitational meet, which was not so much a real competition as it was a consolation prize for freshmen and sophomores who never got to race in a regular season meet because there were many better swimmers than them on the team. I don’t remember what events I chose. I think we were allowed something like up to three individual events and a relay, or something like that. I imagine I swam 100 free, and probably the 400 free relay. I don’t really remember. Some of the events, like the 50 free, had so many swimmers they had to run that race over and over and over so everyone got a chance, but there were two races that only had one heat, as I recall: 100 fly, and 500 free. I chose to swim the 500, and finished it in eight minutes, thirty point six nine seconds. I hadn’t picked it because I really thought I was a fabulous long-distance swimmer or anything. I’m pretty sure I just looked at the list and picked it because it sounded hard but I thought I could do it.

I was right.

I went on to swim the 500 regularly for the rest of my high school career, along with the 100 fly (which I initially hated, but by the end sort of enjoyed — at least, I enjoyed that I was good at it, which is not exactly the same thing, but it’s close enough to get you through a season). I was never a sprinter and I never did the 50, don’t think I did the 100 free either. They did make me swim the 200 once in a while — although I hated it because the 200 is a sprint, not a long-distance event, and eight lengths of sprinting sucks, y’all sprinters can have your stupid 200 back, give me my nice peaceful 500. As it turned out, I really liked the 500. I had a pace, I breathed about every six strokes, I had a little rhythm with my flip turns, I could just go for it, and sprint the last hundred or fifty, and basically so far as I was concerned, the 500 was the best event in the whole meet.

Fast forward a decade and a half.

I looked at the description of a triathlon, repeatedly, last year while I was busily learning to run and deciding that I was capable of actually doing this competition thing after all. 800 yards? I can do that in my sleep, I said. Mind you, I hadn’t been in a pool seriously training since 1995, but I swim every once in a while — read: I goof off in a pool for an hour, punctuated by the odd 100 or 200 where I pretend I’m actually there to work out like a grown up. (But I totally still do headstands if nobody is watching. Sometimes I do them even if people are watching. Actually, I DO THEM ALL THE TIME. Headstands are fun. I won’t say no to the odd somersault here or there. I like to dive underwater and dolphin kick. I also like to walk on my hands underwater and see how far I can go before I lose my balance and fall over. …See what I mean about goofing off? I can’t help it. Water is where fun lives.) Anyways, I looked at the triathlon distances and was like, oh, piece of cake. I pretty much just have to show up the day of the race and I can do that.

But I did end up starting training, when I signed up with T2 (give me all your moneys). Once a week I show up for an hour and someone who actually knows what he’s doing tells me what to swim. We do timed intervals and things that suck, like one-armed freestyle (no fun). But we do get to do some somersaults too, which I approve of. Anyways, the difference between me showing up to the pool and going ‘ehhh…. I guess I’ll swim another 200 free’ and having an actual coach who knows how to plan swim workouts is pretty dramatic. It’s made me kind of want to find a masters team to swim with, except for, in what magical dream world do I have the extra time to do that? But I’ve also been going out on my own to swim, at my gym at home as well as with spinning and now triathlon buddy N., over by Union Station.

So last Tuesday, a week ago, we were just about to finish up our workout — before we got kicked out of the pool by the masters team, actually — and had time for one last thing. We both picked out our goals. I decided to swim a 200, and time myself. I looked at the pool clock, since I wasn’t wearing a watch, and carefully noted the starting time — eight minutes and thirty seconds. And I swam my 200… and then another 200 for good measure, because I didn’t feel like stopping yet. I stopped at 400 because I knew the masters people were probably getting impatient. And I was all excited to see my time, which would be the first time I had a time in years. I sprinted my last 25, finished hard, swam into the wall, popped up and yanked my goggles off, and then looked at the clock. Eight minutes and thirty seconds. What.

Of course, the clock wasn’t working, and I hadn’t noticed. Doh.

So I got myself a little watch. I used to wear a Timex Ironman when I was swimming, and truthfully, I wanted one exactly like it. I searched and finally found one that I thought was just like it — another Timex Ironman, not fancy, the size sounded right, only $25. It came today, and I stopped by home to pick it up before I went to the pool, so I could time myself. I figured out how to work the chronometer so I could time myself, and headed out. I warmed up briefly, then swam my 800. I lost count around 300 so it’s 800 +/- 50, actually. It was going to be a 400, like last Tuesday, then I figured, might as well go for 500 like my old 500s. Then I felt like I could keep going, and I figured that at that point I was halfway there and I might as well see if I could do the full 800 triathlon distance. So I just kept going, until I finished my (probably) 800.

14:31.20.

My first race, at 8:30 for 500 yards in 1991 when I was 13, works out to about 1:42 per 100. This 800 at 14:31 works out to about 1:48 per 100.

Not too shabby for a total dilettante whose idea of a hard swim workout is one where she accidentally snorkels water up her nose when giggling underwater from falling down out of a headstand. I think maybe I can pull this thing off after all.

Yay!

(No, I don’t know what happened in this blog post. I started out writing short, choppy, silly sentences and ending with smileys, and then things got kind of out of control, YAY! :D )