The Owen Sound Triathlon AAR

I'm a triathlete.

Actually, calling myself that would be an insult to real triathletes, people that do these things... a hell of a lot faster than I do.

But I did complete my first triathlon last Sunday.

Sunday Morning: I only fell asleep five-and-a-half hours before. I stayed at Shahid and Shadia's walima as long as I could, finally getting home at about 12:30am. But it took me another hour before I could relax my mind enough to get to bed. My alarm went off at 7:15am; I got out of bed around 7:30am.

I had an hour before I had to be out the door, so I made my usual morning smoothie, prepared 1.5 litres of Gatorade and threw all the gear I'd laid out the day before into a backpack (the running shoes, the biking shoes, my goggles, my jersey, sunglasses, water-bottles, change of clothes, my towel, my helmet, energy gels, emergency bike kit -- my God, there was a lot of stuff to remember). I went through my mental checklist four or five times before I eventually tuned out that nagging paranoia over forgetting something, and made sure I had the driving instructions to the race site before dragging my backpack and my bike down to the car.

8:50 AM: After stopping off at the gas station to top up my tank and grab an extra-large coffee, I was on the highway and on my way. Two-and-a-half hours later, I finally pulled into the parking lot of the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre in Owen Sound.

There was still almost four hours to go before the start of the race, but this being my first triathlon, I'd wanted to give myself plenty of time. I still needed to pick up my race kit, set up my transition, get a lay of the land, grab something to eat and find some way to relax. I needn't have worried so much about the first three on the list. The race site was intuitively laid out and the volunteers were friendly and helpful. Picking up my race-kit, setting up my transition and getting body-marked and time-chipped took all of twenty minutes, tops. Relaxing was another story entirely.

I met up with Andrea and Mike, who'd spotted me racking my bike, and we decided to kill some time by watching the Under-9 Kids of Steel Duathlon. You haven't seen "cute" until you watch four-year olds running for five-hundred metres, cycling three kilometres on bikes with training wheels, then running five-hundred metres all over again. After that, we went into town to eat.

Nourishment was a huge concern to me before the race, because I was in uncharted territory. All of the other runs I'd participated in were early in the morning, so my morning smoothie and a coffee were all that I needed. I'd had that smoothie at 8:00am, but it had been four hours since then, and I had another two-and-a-half hours until the start. I needed something light, easy to digest and came in sensible portions. I wanted to err on the side of caution and avoid ingesting too much; if I ran out of gas during the race, I had plenty of energy gels with me for a boost.

We finally ended up at Tim Horton's. I ordered a small, six-inch turkey sandwich. But the trainee behind the counter rang up a large, twelve-inch sandwich by mistake, and I didn't notice the error until I'd received my order. I could have just eaten half of it. Yet I ate it all. My demons were shouting down my better angels, and my "can't waste food" compulsion completely overruled the "don't overstuff yourself before the race" plan. I walked out of the door with twelve inches of sandwich sitting like lead in my stomach, and praying to everything Holy that I would digest the damn thing in the next two hours.

2:00 PM: Back at the race site. An hour to go until the start. The nervous energy started building to a crescendo. I popped two ibuprofen to blunt any potential shoulder pain. I double-, then triple-checked my transition area set-up and fussed over the fit of my goggles (my biggest fear during the swim was that one of my contact lenses would get washed out; if that happened, I was complete screwed).

I went through the goals in my head: I'd budgeted twenty minutes for the swim, forty-five minutes for the bike, thirty minutes for the run and five-odd minutes for transition. 1:40:00. I set my goal time at 1:45:00 to give myself some leeway for... whatever. It was a far cry from the 1:30:00 goal I had in mind back in May, but my shoulder issues, and the wrench that threw into my training schedule, prompted me to scale the goal back.

2:30 PM: The race announcer issued final instructions and warnings. The main warning was that a brisk northerly wind had started up and that there were waves coming into the harbour. We were informed that anyone wanting to switch their start placing (the triathlon featured four start waves, broken out by age group, starting three minutes apart) or forgo the swimming entirely and switch to the duathlon (run, bike, run), had to do immediately. The water in the harbour looked calm enough, so I didn't give it much thought.

2:45 PM: Andrea and I got into the water and started to warm up. Five minutes before the start, we were lined up behind the start bouys for the in-water start, and ready to go with the first wave. I was trying to stay to the outside edge of the group to prevent myself being run over by faster swimmers. I shook Andrea's hand, wished her luck, then just tried to calm myself, waiting for the starting horn.

3:00 PM: The starting horn went off. I dove forward into the water, gave two dolphin kicks to give myself some momentum, and started swimming.

The swim, if I may speak frankly, fucking sucked. They really weren't kidding about the wind and the waves. The first two-hundred-and-fifty metres took us west into the middle of the harbour and I found myself continually adjusting for the fact that I was being swept south by the waves. After the first buoy, we started north. Directly into the waves.

This was where my shoulder injury, and the lack of swimming conditioning, really hurt me. I wasn't feeling much pain, but I couldn't increase my stroke cadence enough to maintain decent speed through the waves. There were times where I'd look up after ten-or-fifteen strokes and felt like I hadn't make one lick of forward progress. But I finally rounded the second buoy and started back towards the beach finish area.

Once I got onto the beach, I checked my watch. The swim took me twenty-five minutes, seven minutes slower than my recent times in the pool. This was not looking good. Yet I wasn't particularly surprised, since every time I'd looked up in the water, I found myself surrounded by swimmers wearing the caps of the waves that started three or six minutes behind me. I didn't dwell on it much; I still had the bike and the run.

I ran through the timing gate and into the transition area. Getting my dry jersey over a wet torso proved to be problematic, but once I'd donned my jersey, helmet, sunglasses, race belt, socks and biking shoes, I finally unracked my bike and ran out to the start of the bike course.

3:28 PM: On my bike, I resisted the urge to just start hammering my legs as hard as I could. I quickly accelerated up to twenty-seven kilometres-per-hour, drained a quarter of my water bottle, and settled in for twenty kilometres of cycling. Setting my bike computer to monitor both speed and cadence, I made sure to keep my RPMs to around eight-five to ninety.

According to the route maps I'd studied before the race, the bike course was relatively flat, but with a nasty-looking one-kilometre-long eight-grade hill just before the turn-around point at the ten-kilometre mark. It took me a minute or two to shake off the effects of the swim, but I was feeling good on the bike, and feeling even better when I started passing people who'd beat me coming out of the water. I passed Andrea about three kilometres into the ride.

Climbing the hill was rough-going. It was a concave-profile hill, and the steady climb up the approach slope dropped my speed to around twenty kilometres-per-hour. About fifty metres from the hill's sharp increase in incline, I shifted down to my smaller crank and started pedalling faster to build up a little speed. That extra speed did not last long. About fifty metres up the incline, I found myself down to barely ten kph; pedaling while standing, already in my lowest possible gear; struggling just to keep up any type of forward momentum; and wondering why in the hell I hadn't sprung for that triple crankset when I bought my bike back in April.

As slow as I was going, I passed a few people on the hill, who had just given up on pedaling and were walking their bikes up to the top. My legs were on fire, sweat was dripping down my face, I was gasping for air, and if the hill had gone on for another 100 metres, I'm pretty sure I would have joined them on foot.

The stretch from the top of the hill to the turn-around was gloriously, gloriously flat. That gave me a minute or so to catch my breath, steady my legs, make the turn-around, and prepare myself for what turned out to be my favourite part of the entire race: riding back down that hill. I was up to fifty-five kph by the time I was halfway down the hill.

I finished off the last of my water about fifteen kilometres into the bike ride and ended up back at the transition area feeling incredibly dehydrated. After dismounting, I ran my bike back to the rack, changed into my running shoes, and, without any thought to the ticking seconds, paused to gulp down the entire half-litre of Gatorade I had placed in my area. Throwing the bottle back down, I dashed off to the run course. I only had five kilometres to go -- five kilometres of pain.

I had tried to prepare myself for this, a week previously, by running six kilometres immediately after a twenty-four kilometre bike ride. But having foreknowledge of how painful an otherwise short run can be, doesn't make the sensation any more pleasant.

4:12 PM: I shortened up my stride to try to settle into the run as quickly as possible. I felt like I was running in molasses, but a quick check of my watch at the one-kilometre mark showed that I was running at a 5:40 per-kilometre pace, faster than the 5:50-6:00 per-kilometre pace I'd been aiming for. At this point, the heat and sun were really starting to affect me. At the two-kilometre aid station, I grabbed a cup of water and just poured it straight over my head. I did the same thing when I passed the water station for the second time, having made the turn-around, on my way back to the finish line.

I'd slowed down to a 6:10 per-kilometre pace for the third and fourth kilometres, but passing the last kilometre marker, I dug down and sped back up. One kilometre to go. I chased down the lady that had been twenty metres ahead of me during the entire run, and did the same with the guy eighty metres ahead. I managed to finish strong, and actually had enough gas to really sprint the last hundred metres.

I finally made it through the finishing gate, and heard that last, tell-tale beep of the ChampionChip mat logging my time. I was done.

1:40:41.

The post-race, endorphin-induced euphoria lasted a good hour-and-a-half. I was satisfied with my time. But I was nowhere near happy with it. On the way home to Toronto, I was already going over the race in my head and coming up with ways to shave off significant amounts of time.

I'll do this again. And I'll be faster.

Maybe I'll get to the point where I can call myself a triathlete without feeling like I'm insulting anybody.