Dam It Man Triathlon--> July 24, 2011

Dam It Man was on Sunday, July 24, 2011 at Elephant Butte Dam Site.  The packet pick-up and transition opened at 5:30 AM.  I'd arrived the night before and stayed at Marcy and Grady Oxford's lake house in Elephant Butte.  Marcy and I got up at 4:40 and killed a 10 cup pot of coffee between us, don't try to tell me that caffeine is not a good pre-race breakfast food!  Okay, we each had a banana too.

Open racking (personal favorite) and we each took an end spot so we had easy in and out and no crowding.  I needed to use my nebulizer.  You may now note that I am attempting to live in peace with my asthma.  I am not railing, whining, or complaining, I am coexisting with my asthma, my companion in triathlon.  This was a rural location with no outlets, so I went to the kind ambulance operators and asked to borrow a cup of electricity.  They were quite willing to let me hook up my nebulizer to their equipment and I got my duoneb ampule delivered to my lungs readily and in time for the pre-race meeting, or at least most of it.

There was a long walk down the stone ramp to the dock.  We were all talking about how long a run UP it would be after the swim.  There were two waves, men in the first wave and women and Clydesdales (men over 200 pounds) in the second wave.  I was good with that since I prefer NOT being in a panic when people swim over me.  It is bad enough when they start swimming into me head on in a loop swim like this on their way back, but usually the lifeguards stop most of the head-on collisions.  There was no ladder to get in/out, so we had to jump in and they had members of the Hot Springs High football team on hand to haul us out of the water.  That was the best news of the morning, okay, electricity for the breathing treatment was #1, but this was a very high #2 since getting out of the water with no ladder was not an experience I think I could handle.

I did the freestyle out to the first buoy and then got a little panicky when a woman swam back headfirst into me.  I thought, "What is up with that?  How did she already loop the course and then run into me?" Then she swam to the kayak near me and I realized she was in some sort of distress.  Now I am embarrassed to report my first thought was, "Good, now I won't be the last person out of the water," instead of, "Gosh, I hope she is okay."  Of course the knock on the head and the panic messed me up a bit and I could not calm down enough to breath right, so I had to do the backstroke for a while until I calmed down and could do the freestyle until the turn around.  Once I hit the turn around, I thought, "Is the swim EVER going to end?" I was seriously considering the stupidity of the idea that I am signed up for Elephant Man where I have to swim FOUR TIMES as long and I can't do it.  I flipped over and did the freestyle for a tiny bit and noticed that the lifeguard had to jump in and rescue a woman.  I am talking, jump out of the boat and take in her lifeguard fun noodle, and give it to one of my fellow triathletes.  Then she stayed in the water and swam with the woman.  That sort of perked me up, and I thought, "Wow, I am not the last person out of the water today for sure."  Then I began doing the breast stroke, and it felt pretty good.  I was moving slowly, but I was not scared, and it felt good.  I was catching up on this guy who was doing the backstroke, I was catching up on the drowning woman, and I even was able to encourage a woman who was struggling along beside me.  I was praying for everyone because I was so scared for them.  I've been the last one out of the water in most of the open water swims this year, this was a new experience.  I have no clue about why.  I know I was still SCARY SLOW.  The Hot Spring High boys were awesome and they hauled me out like I weighed nothing.  I ran up the boat ramp, but I did not run all the way up the stone incline. 

I know I am petrified when I think about Elephant Man in September.  I know I did the mile swim last year in an hour and twenty minutes, and it scary.  People swam over me and I thought I was going to be killed.  I cried in the water but I would not quit swimming. There were waves and I didn't know what to do about them or what to do with them.  Did I say I was scared.  Yeah.  I was scared, and I am still scared every time I do an open water swim.  I do them anyway.   There is a lot to be said about doing things that scare you  because when you are not scared you don't have to be brave.  I really like Nichole Noredeman's song Brave with the chorus that says:

So long status quo
I think I just let go
You make me want to be brave
The way it always was
Is no longer good enough
You make me want to be brave
Brave, brave

There is a line in the song where she sings about "fear ties me down" and I don't want fear to tie me down.  I am doing Elephant Man, and I am scared.  Just letting you all know.  I am scared. A whole bunch.  Back to the race.

Off on the bike portion of the race, and I knew immediately I'd made a big mistake; I left my bike in too big a gear and I could not get up the hill out of the dam.  I jumped off the bike and just ran up the hill and then got back on so I could pedal off.  The course was good, but I really brought the wrong bike.  I should have left Grace (tri bike) at home and brought Mercy (road bike) with me.  I needed more gears and I had very little time in the aero position.  There was a section on the course, about mile 5 where I was flying about 31 mph, that I thought, "I'd better get ready to brake, I have no clue about this route and it is a great place for a wreck."  I got up out of aero position and came flying around a corner to see the ambulance, state police, EMS truck and saw them loading a cyclist into the ambulance.  Evidently, I correctly assessed the danger of that particular section of the road.  Heavy sigh and prayers for the sad triathlete on the way to the hospital.  I did pass a few folks on the bike portion, uphill most of the time, and then off on the run.

I had to use my inhaler at the start of the run, and the run began with a good hill to just make sure our legs were aware they were expected to be active participants in the day.  There was a water station and then a turn to the left and a turn around.  Well, the early runners were not so fortunate to have volunteers there to tell them to turnaround, so a large number of them run an extra 3 miles, yeah, they did a 10K instead of a 5K, so they posted times that are either minutes before or after mine, but they ran twice as far.  Interesting turn of events.  In triathlon it is the participants responsibility to know the course, so nobody blames the event director, except that they do, if you know what I mean.  I realized this had happened when I was making the second turnaround loop and Marcy is coming up to the second turnaround.  I asked, "What are you doing?" and I was thinking she might just be getting in an extra workout.  She told me she was trying to finish the course.  YIKES.  After the race we drove the extra she and the group she ended up running with and measured it with my Garmin, and it was an extra 3 miles.  She still won her age group because all of the women her age were in her group.  Go Marcy!  Anyway, I was absolutely loving the run.  I don't know why my time was 46 minutes, because I thought I had a great run.  I was happy, springy in my step, I was slow according to the time, but I had an awesome time.  My overall time was 2:11:40, so this was a slow sprint race but I have no baseline to compare since I've never done this race before.  My individual times were Swim 400 Meters :  19:06  Bike 12 miles:  54:37  Run 5K:  46:16  

Yeah, I forgot to tell you, I got second place and a beautiful shiny silver medal.  I also accommodated my asthma and borrowed a second cup of electricity and did a second breathing treatment in the ambulance.  My lungs were grateful. 

Next up is the Chili Harvest Triathlon at Socorro on August 6th.  I like that race a lot.  The people do a great job and the bike course is interesting and fun.  The run has some dirt trail stuff I like too; it is easier on my knees.

I am SOOOOOO open to suggestions to deal with my Elephant Man fear.  You can certainly pray for me.