It’s been a month now. I haven’t wanted to write about the triathlon. First of all the water quality at Shady Oak Lake deteriorated right before the race so the swim portion was cancelled. I was disappointed and also relieved. Although my swimming has really improved I’m terrible in open water. And this race turned out to be just very strange. It was supposed to be just for fun, and you could choose your distance as you went. Because everyone was running and biking different distances there were no Age Group awards, no podiums, no way to tell how you did against the other people in the race.
I had decided early on that I was going to do the longest distances for each component. So I ran 5k, biked 12 miles, and then ran 1.5 miles. Who knows how many other people did that, but I know for sure that none of the slower people like me made that choice.
I was apprehensive about the logistics of a tri, even without the swim. Just managing two different disciplines at the same time felt overwhelming, thank goodness I didn’t have to deal with three! But I had done a lot of reading and Facebooking about tris so I knew what to expect.
I got there plenty early, found the place in the transition area where I was supposed to rack my bike, and the helpful volunteers showed me how; I would have never figured it out otherwise! There's a bar, and you hang your bike from the seat post. If there was an incorrect way to do this I would have found it without their help!
Running, shoes, hat, water, gel, sunglasses, phone - check. We started in waves of about 50 people (about 400 people total), in order by when we registered. I was in the second group, and as it turns out it’s a good thing. Because I had mainly focused on swimming and biking and really hadn’t run much at all this summer, my running was crap. Getting covid a couple of weeks ago didn’t help either. I was really slow, even for me.
But the biking portion went better. I averaged around 13 mph, same as I did in the 65 mile Tour de Tonka, which is good for me, but very slow for a race. During the biking portion I started to realize just how slow. You could do anything from 1 to 3 4 mile loops. I gradually realized that almost no one as slow as me did the full 12 miles. By the time I got off the bike there were only a couple of people behind me.
You could decide at that point to just run over the finish line and call it a day. That’s what I probably should have done but no, I had told myself I was going to do the final 1.5 miles so I did. There was no one, and I mean NO ONE on that course at the end! The water station was closed, the volunteers pointing the way were gone. When I got to the final stretch I wondered if the finish line would still be up! There were a few volunteers walking to the finish area and they saw me jogging along. One of them ran ahead yelling, “One more! One more!” Haha. People lined the finish shoot and cheered for me! I was kind of embarrassed, and also laughing at the absurdity of it all. I had finally managed to come in Dead Fucking Last in a race.
As time goes by, and I’ve had a little time to think about it I think triathlons are just not my thing. I like to run. I like to bike, a lot. I’m proud of myself for learning to swim better, but I think I will stick to pool swimming from now on. But tris? No. I can’t see my swimming getting that much better. Getting faster on the bike probably means getting a road bike. I can run ok for my age but to be halfway decent means focusing on it, and I just don’t have the time or energy to devote to doing 3 sports well.
So one and done. That’s ok. I’m running the TCM 10 mile race on Sunday. I’ll focus mainly on running for now and use biking, swimming, pilates and strength training as cross training. I'm starting to plan my fitness goals for next year. I think it's going to be a year of half marathons. That's a hard distance for me, but not as all-consuming or depleting as full marathons. I've signed up for the Gary Borkland Half in Duluth next June already and I'll probably add Goldy's Run and a few others to that as well. And maybe another distance bike ride too. Could I do the 70 miler in Mankato next fall? Will I get a road bike next spring? Stay tuned!
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