This morning I woke up at 4:15 am. If I'm going to wake up that early, it ought to be for something good, like snowboarding. But no, it was for our traditional sprint triathlon up at Berryessa. Why I am such a glutton for punishment, I don't know, but this was the third year I've done it. It's not like I don't know how it is by now. I'm definitely fully aware of what I've gotten myself into. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, I'm still signing up for them. Admittedly, it's not really the event itself that is hard. It's a sprint triathlon, which means that it's short--a half mile swim, 15 mile bike, and 4 mile run. I'm getting older, but there's no way that's too much . . . unless I don't train, which is what has happened for the past three years. I swear I plan to do it, but it falls through every time. The last two years I got sick and this year I was simply too lazy (and busy). Okay, there's definitely a lazy factor in the other two years, too.
So given my abyssmal track record, why do I keep signing up? Well, the optimist in me wants to give myself another chance for redemption. But most of it is for Jim, because he likes doing them and I know he appreciates me joining in on the fun. It's only a few days of being miserable and in pain, and given everything he humors me on, it's the least I can do.
We ended up leaving about 5:10 for the lake and arrived a little before 6:30, among the first. The first time we went, we arrived too late to park in the main lot and almost missed the start of the race. As much as I gripe about leaving so early, it is nice to relax before the start of the race. We racked our bikes very close to where we put them last year, which is another advantage to arriving early, because we ended up not having any bike rack space in year one and we left them in the muddy grass area next to the racks. Changing was an absolute disaster.
Anyway, my ex-boyfriend T and his younger brother M were also there. T, M, and Jim all went off in the first heat for the swim and I went in the second. The announcer said the water temperature was 68 degrees, and I was very happy about that. Then he added that that was only the surface temperature and 6 inches below it was 54. I was absolutely dying on the swim. First of all, I was in horrible shape. I swam 1000 yards in March and the time before that was the previous year's triathlon. And last year I did the same thing, which means that I've swam the total of one regular workout in two years. Now, being an ex-swimmer, there's only so bad you get. It's kind of like riding a bicycle, except that I'm terrible at riding one, and likewise I apparently don't retain my swimming muscles when I don't use them for years. So I seem to differ from the norm in that I've forgotten how to swim and bike. I was exhausted after the swim. Of course the water temperature didn't help me out any. It was miserable and while I didn't cramp up, I was numb and on autopilot. Plus I was super demoralized when I got passed up at the end by everyone, including a fat old man, because the piano dropped big time with me. I felt like such a lap swimmer.
I ran up the ramp to the bike racks, mostly to try and get some feeling back in my body. It actually didn't really hurt this time running over all of the gravel and rocks because my feet were so numb. I used Jim's changing station since he was long gone and got into all of my bike gear. I had extra incentive to hurry, because I was so freaking cold. I was crying for the first 3 miles because I couldn't get warmed up and it hurt so badly. I had goosebumps the entire 15 miles of the bike and didn't realize I had forgotten to take off my swimsuit until somewhere around mile 12 or 13.
As I said before, I am TERRIBLE at bicycling. Really, truly horrible. I don't enjoy it and I'm not good at it, which makes for a pretty bad combination. Throw in the chill factor, and it was an hour and 15 minutes of pain. However, I was happy because I had set myself a goal of not going off the road this year and accomplished it. My first year I kept veering off into the bushes and almost crashing. The second year, I only went off the road once or twice, but this year, I stayed on the raod the entire time. Plus I had a very cool cow horn that Jim bought me at the bike shop yesterday. I got two compliments on it and that made me happy.
Finally, I got to the run, which is my favorite part, because it's almost over and I don't entirely suck at it. If the water was warmer and I actually swam maybe a couple of times a month, I'd probably like that more. I finally got feeling back in my feet somewhere after the second mile, and then my socks bugged me for the rest of the way (they were bunched up under my toes). Incidentally, it was right after the 2 mile mark that the 11 year old passed me up. Talk about demoralizing. By the time I had run two and a quarter miles, he was completely out of sight.
I was completely out of cookies by the end and couldn't muster up the energy to sprint it out like I had the previous two years. That was the big flashing neon sign to me that I need to start exercising more, because while my overall time didn't increase significantly (I was right in between last year's time and the first year's time), it required so much more effort. I pretty much ran straight to the bathroom to pee, because I had decided to try a different tactic this year. I drank probably the equivalent of 5-6 glasses of water before the race in order to stay hydrated throughout. It worked, in that I really wasn't thirsty at all during the race. The downside was that I REALLY needed to pee by the end. I wanted to try and pee in the water during the swim, but it was so cold that it wasn't working.
Anyway, after taking tons of energy drinks (14 between the two of us, not including the ones we actually drank), we left Putah Creek Resort to grab some lunch. Nothing sounded particularly good and we ended up settling on Round Table Pizza, getting the buffet. It was a weird combination--we were both extremely thirsty and because we kept drinking, we were too full to eat much. Plus with the exhaustion factor, we simply weren't all that tired. But I think we ate enough to justify paying for the buffet. I ate some salad, too, and Jim stuck with just the pizza.
We got back to Jim's house, sat down on the recliners, and conked out for about 45 minutes. That put us off schedule to get to M's birthday party and we ended up getting there closer to 3:30, about a half hour late. Thankfully, we were still among the first ones there. R's grandparents and M's mom were the only ones at the house. R was busy running around in the kitchen getting everything ready. I have to say that Jim and I were anything but the life of the party. We were moving slowly, didn't have much energy, and kind of sat like lumps for the 2 hours were were there. We tried drinking some diet Coke to perk us up, but it didn't work at all. I felt kind of bad for how antisocial we were, but we just couldn't muster up the brain power to converse.
R's dad is supposed to be a chef, and he had brought over Tri Tip. I was trying to ask him about it, but he didn't want to talk to me. I was pretty disappointed. I don't know if he's actually a good chef or not, but he's had some sort of formal training, so he's got to have some knowledge to impart on me, especially on the dead animal side of things.
It was a Mexican theme for food. M's mom had made some lowfat bean dip (canned refried beans, sour cream, cheese, and olives), R's dad's tri tip, and R had made some shredded chicken with green salsa in the slow cooker. She warmed up tortillas and had a make-it-yourself burrito/taco bar. There were also sauteed bell peppers and onions, canned refried beans, lettuce, sour cream, and cheese for toppings. Oh, and fruit salad. The fruit salad was pretty good, with pineapple, Asian pear, strawberries, and mango.
Anyway, we left around 5:30 to run to Costco before it closed. My mom had asked me to pick up a couple of things, and Jim needed eggs anyway. He also bought a portable A/C unit, which I've been after him to get for a long time now. We drooled over an outdoor table set. I really, really liked it. We may end up getting it, but we'll see. I like that it came with covers and everything. The only thing we would need after that is some sort of heat lamp.
No comments:
Post a Comment