Camp Pendleton Sprint Triathlon

A couple of months ago, my good friend Melanie Karner told me that she and another friend in our ward, Heidi Hawkins, were going to do the Camp Pendleton Sprint Triathlon on August 4.  Melanie said I should do it, too.  So I did. 

I've been really wanting to get new running shoes for probably four years.  The race - and the fact that my shoes' stuffing had totally escaped - motivated me to finally conquer my foot deformity, shoe and shopping aversions, and inability to leave the house on days I'm not working to go buy new shoes.  I sort of thought the race might be a nice way to say goodbye to these guys:

This picture does not do justice to the filthiness.  They've been on every hike, every run, pretty much every walk, and even some touristy-type excursions since I bought them, I don't know, 10 years ago.  Never washed.

Given the stuffing situation, however, I risked blisters and wore these, which I bought two days before the race:

Similar, except presentable. 

Remember when I made fun of Jim's pants?  (See http://whitandjim.blogspot.com/2012/03/pants-that-jim-wears.html.)  Perhaps in this way we are peas in a pod.

I had hoped the race would also motivate me to exercise, but that was not to be.  Instead, I prepared by pretty much not working out for a year and then going out for Smashburger and Coldstone the night before.  The last time I rode a real bike was during the sprint triathlon Jim and I did in Galena, Illinois on our honeymoon over four years ago, although I have done a few miles on a bike at the gym every once in a while since then.  I went for a brief swim in a pool once while I was pregnant.  Aside from that, the last time I swam was in Galena.  Needless to say, I was not favored to win. 

The swim (500 yards, or about 1/4 mile) and run (5k) were shorter than Galena; the bike (30k, or about 18 miles) was a little longer.  This was an ocean swim, so we had to deal with currents and waves.  We were in the 40+/overweight (euphemistically referred to as "Athena," for some reason)/mountain bike wave, which was the very last to go.  I rode the mountain bike Mamo and Papo gave me for Christmas approximately two decades ago (I'm thinking I was in 8th grade?) and sported the retro-cool helmet from the same time period.  Melanie was so into my helmet she insisted of getting a picture of me wearing it next to my hot rod before the race.  If I ever get that picture from her, I'll have to add it.  It's really cute.  (Or not.)

Mel and I in the transition area before the race:

I thought the swim would be easy, but I was a disaster.  It's just a rectangular swim course; you go out to the left of a buoy, round the buoy, swim parallel to the shore, round another buoy, and head in to the beach.  We watched the groups ahead of us get sucked to the right and struggle to swim left to get around the first buoy.  Accordingly, we started way down the beach, and then I swam to the left to make sure I didn't get pulled to the right of the first buoy.  I ended up so far out to the left that I was in no danger of that.  I couldn't see well because my goggles were dirty and scratched and half-full of water at all times.  I could not for the life of me swim in a straight line.  On every leg, the workers on jet skis were yelling things like, "Swimmer, you're off course!"  I thought it would be cake once I rounded the second buoy and headed for shore, but that's when things really got hairy.  I was so disoriented and all over the place that I had to take two strokes, come up, do a complete 360, and try to find the beach.  Even when I spotted the shore, I couldn't tell if I was looking at the sand right in front of me or way down the beach.  I almost felt as though I were drugged or something.  It was bizarre.  Some guy on a paddleboard tried to help another struggling lady and me in by telling us to swim by him and follow the red floaty he was dragging.  I wasn't close enough to him, though, and couldn't see the red floaty when I put my face in the water.  I eventually made it to shore, ahead of only a few people.  Embarrassing.

Heidi, her sister-in-law (who was also racing), and Mel were almost ready to start the bike portion when I got to the transition area.  I tried to discuss the swim, but they seemed in a hurry.  Heidi and her sister-in-law headed out, but Mel waited while I got my shoes on.  I had told her that if I did the race, she had to stay with me.  After I pulled my bike out, I was like, "So give me a lesson on the gears.  How do I work them?"  She refused my inquiry and said, "It's a race!"  We laughed about that exchange later.  She tried to stay with me for a few minutes but couldn't go slow enough to keep up with me.  She went on ahead, and I had a leisurely ride bringing up the rear.  As I was biking, I thought, "I could go faster, but then my legs would hurt.  That wouldn't be fun."  I passed a couple people and got passed by a few.  For a good portion of it, I was just biking alone with nobody else in sight.  I even wondered if I'd taken a wrong turn.  Mel and Heidi said they had the road to themselves a lot, too.  I guess that's what happens when you're in the very last wave.  The bike portion was quite flat and easy, although there was one hill at the end I almost thought I'd have to walk up.  My bum region hurt bad, but my knees held up well.  I felt pretty good starting the run. 

I saw both Heidi and Mel on the run.  Melanie took off just as I was getting to the transition area.  The run, too, was flat and easy.  I ran (jogged) the whole thing, despite what Dolly did to my bladder control (not good), and made up a couple of minutes.  I ended up finishing just four minutes behind Heidi and two minutes behind Mel.  I even beat a few people, although I'm sure they were over 50 and/or had a flat tire during the bike leg.  I considered my performance a raging success.  The humiliating part was all of the people along the course yelling, "Good job!  Keep it up!  Let's pick up the pace for the last section!" and things of that nature.  I really wanted to explain, "I'm not doing a good job, and I'm OK with that.  If I had actually trained and were trying right now, that would be sad."  They made me feel really embarrassed, as did the fact that I had to start the run after most people had finished.  But part of that was a function of our being in the last wave. 

In any case, here are the three of us after the race:

(Midget much?)

After we finished, they let us walk on some giant military hovercraft thingy:  

Back at the car:

So I learned some things about myself during the Camp Pendleton Sprint Tri.  I learned that I am lazy and that I apparently have not one competitive bone in my body.  I can't figure out why anyone really cares about how he does in a race.  To me, it's just a nice way to spend a couple of hours outside getting some moderately strenuous exercise.  I didn't know I was so uncompetitive, and I find it intriguing in light of the fact that I participated in competitive individual sports as a wee lass.