8/10/08--Camp Whitcomb-Mason

Here they are, in arbitrary order: The top 10 highlights of the Camp Whitcomb-Mason Triathlon.

10. A chilly morning prevented me from arriving in my usual red sassy shorts. Instead I kept my ginormous blue scrub pajama bottoms until it warmed a little. I won't complain; a chilly morning means comfortable race weather, in this case sunny and 72 degrees.

9. Camp's bike route is known for its hills--big and small, steep and rolling, all adorned with the curse words of triathletes who just want to finish, damnit. I put my quads to the test in this race, and did okay.

8. At the lakefront some top 80s tunes were blaring from the sound system, so my warm-up turned quickly from a jog around camp to some dancing.

7. My father-in-law Dan braved the hilly bike course and trail run to make CWM his first triathlon. Here he is putting pre-race nerves aside to pose in his stylin' swim cap.

6. I also look cute in a swim cap.




5. I began working summers at Camp Whitcomb-Mason in 1996, and still have friends there today. This place holds a special spot in my heart--it was here at the fire ring, singing songs like "Princess Pat" and "Friends" that I began to learn who I am. I never in a million years thought I could finish the triathlon, though.

4. The delicious banana nut muffins were free to athletes after the race.

3. The lake was a bath-water 79 degrees, but the first and last 50 yards (not the middle) were marred with seaweed. I will use it as my excuse for the slow swim time. Yes. Seaweed.

2. Of course, my lobster Erika was on hand as my photographer and athletic supporter, as I am eager to point out in this snapshot.

1. The majority of volunteers in this race are camp summer staff. This means you will encounter twentysomethings at every turn singing "Boom Chicka Boom", doing the wave for you, or naively but supportively cheering "Almost there!" when you have four miles left to bike and a 5K to run. They're the best volunteers of any race I've done.

Next race--Pleasant Praire Triathlon, Olympic distance.

Single and Lazy.

I have a race on Sunday, so no working out today.
Erika has been out shopping with her mother for the past four hours, so I have the apartment to myself.
Welcome to my life if I were single and lazy.
So how have I spent the day?

1. Drive to Half Price Books to buy a book Erika wanted.
2. Stop at GNC to pick up a multivitamin (we're both low in iron).
3. Stop at Target for sundries.
4. Swing by Good Harvest Market to get a post-race recovery snack and Erika's favorite cookie.

And once I'm home:
A. Disassemble the fan and air conditioner to wipe down each, as the dust is giving Erika headaches.
B. Clean out the dishwasher, because it's ready and I'm bored and Erika hates doing it.
C. Blog (about life without Erika).

If it isn't painfully obvious, 85% of my daily activities somehow involve my lobster, and the percentage jumps dramatically if she's actually with me. Which begs the question: What the hell did I do with my life before I was hitched?

Does anyone out there remember their single life?

I wish there were two of you, but alas...

It's Friday night, my lobster and I have beaten off with sticks all incoming offers to hang out, so here we sit watching episodes of The West Wing on DVD.

She pauses midway to fix a snack and I'm reminded of recent advice from the eye surgeon: take the prism off your eyeglasses once in a while to test your progress and get your eyes used to working on their own again.

Why am I reminded of this in the middle of The West Wing? The truth is, with the TV on "pause", the room dark, I had nothing else to think about but how irritated I was with my one cloudy lens (the left lens with the prism on it gets cloudy from time to time). (Since we're on a truth tangent, Erika and I didn't beat off any incoming offers to hang out, either. We welcome them, if anyone is interested.)

Sitting in one place and watching TV seems like a safe way to experiment, so I go to the bathroom and take off the prism (it peels off like a thin rubber magnet). Instantly I'm back to double--two picture frames of Grandma Clare, two Erikas, two frozen images of the Deputy Chief of Staff. I think, it's too early. I'm not ready.

Fortunately, Erika takes a while to make brownie sundaes with strawberries. While I continue to wait, they continue to adjust. By the time she's ready, so am I. My vision has somehow become single and we watch the rest of the episode. Feeling like my lucky night, I go spend some time on the computer. At first, I'm feeling my eyes working--a strange sensation. Normally we go through day-to-day movements that our muscles never feel, like drumming your fingers or blinking. I could feel the muscles around my eyes concentrating on pulling it all together; they're like a tweezers we squeeze shut, and at any moment they could spring back open. But they never did.

Yesterday I put the prism back on for my bike ride. (I'm not crashing that stupid bike twice.) Hopeful and curious about last night's new territory, I peel it off once I'm home and get ready for a cookout with Erika's family. With no eye strain and good single vision, I drive us there. Talk about appreciating the simple things in life...Look at me, mom! I can drive with no prism! I actually choked up. The bright sun was brutal, but thankfully I only saw one of each relative.
Today I laid all my cards on the table. I woke up, put in my contacts...and went running. The ultimate test, running. Talk about massive unnecessary movement, not at all like The West Wing. The world was shaky, but now I'm starting to wonder if the world was always shaky when I ran and I never noticed. No double vision.

Here I sit, a nap and several hours later. A headache and some eye strain have forced my contacts out and glasses back on, but they are still without prism.

Nearly two months later, I'm almost better.

Can someone hand me my walker?

I've decided that it's mostly true what people say about age being a state of mind and what matters is being young at heart and blah blah blah.
Mostly true.
Next week I turn 35, which by numeric standards is "middle aged".
Yet,
I run miles every week.
I bike even more.
I swam nonstop for an hour the other day.
Young at heart, right?

So how the hell did I pull a muscle in my back and resort to the use of a heating pad and Motrin just to be able to sit on my own couch and watch a rerun of The West Wing? In what insanely vigorous task was this young-spirited triathlete engaged to cause such an instant and painful reaction?
I was bent over the other day...

scrubbing the toilet.

You're only as old as you feel. Do I qualify for the Senior Discount now?

7-19-08--Spirit of Racine

With every passing minute it seemed like Spirit of Racine, my first solo tri since the accident, was becoming less and less of a good idea. It was 6:15 AM and raining, and I wasn't keen on biking through puddles. (I still have an aversion to using my brakes, much less in the wet.) I had been obsessed for the last 48 hours about the water temperatures of Lake Michigan, which at last notice was 59 degrees. The race website had cheerfully reminded us athletes to "Bring your wetsuit!", but at this point it didn't look like it would make much of a difference. A damp and heavy fog had settled just beyond the shoreline where the athletes follow the buoys on the swim course, and we began to seriously consider if I would be able to physically see well enough to stay on track.
We were tired from our 4 AM wake-up call (Erika didn't sleep at all last night) and save the $80 registration fee I was more than half-hoping a single bolt of lightning would've called off the race so we could go home and crawl back into bed.
After we spent some time sitting in the car and grumbling, we made our way back down to the beach to watch the start of the Women's Triathlon, an hour and a half before mine. The fog had lifted and the rain was temporarily holding off. The horn went off for them and we watched as they high-stepped into the water and immediately began screaming four-letter words. The women in the front bravely dove in and we walked along the shore as the leader swam her route parallel. I can't explain fully what it did for my optimism, my attitude to watch her swim. It meant it was possible. It meant it wasn't the end of the world. She emerged 12 minutes later to cheers and applause, and by her not being dead it meant that I could do it, too. I was starting to change my mind about today.
The next half-hour or so I spent setting up my own gear. The rain stayed away and so I started to picture actually getting through the race instead of driving home. With time to spare, we were back at the Starting Line so I could acclimate to the water.


Fifty-nine degrees is cold. I'm talking burning, biting cold. I'm talking "I've been standing in this sh** for 30 seconds and now I can't feel my own damn feet" cold. I stuck my face in only because I was warned that if you're not ready for it, it will take your breath away. I should mention at this time that on BT, the website I frequent for triathletes, I've read a variety of advice in the discussion forums on handling cold water. Wear two swim caps instead of one. Check. Pull your caps over your ears to minimize dizziness from inner ear hypothermia. Done. Pee in your wetsuit. What?!
It's true. In all seriousness it's been suggested to pee in your wetsuit to warm up the material in contact with your skin. The advantage is that given the material of a wetsuit, you can be surrounded by hundreds of people and start peeing and no one will know it. So partly out of necessity to pee, partly to feel the affects and partly just for fun, I peed in my wetsuit about five minutes before the race started. My lobster was on hand for the picture.


There's not much to say about the swim part of the race. Lake Michigan was surprisingly clear and clean, but with my poor vision (and double vision) I was entirely too focused on heading in the right direction. I felt strong in the water, but I was still getting passed. It became in my head the part I just had to get through. I checked my watch when I was finally able to stand up again half a mile later--best swim time ever. Who knew.

Six minutes later I was on the bike, my least favorite leg of the race, but I felt cruisin' and I was making good time. It started to dawn on me--maybe this isn't a race you just need to get through. This could actually be a good race. Let's see what happens.

Now I'm running on a course I heard was "flat and fast", so what the hell is this hill doing here? A girl I stuck with on the bike was walking, and I passed her on the hill, only to have her pass me again when she started running. Stupid luck. But the cloudy sky and 70 degree temps were perfect running weather, and the end was in sight.

I raised my hands in victory when I crossed the finish line, not just for getting myself back in the game after the summer's events but for a personal best time by three minutes. Near the end of the finish line chute a young volunteer handed me a plaque--Third Place. What the? In each age group (mine being 35-39, even though I'm not 35 yet--bitches) this race gives out awards to the top five, and the plaque said Third Place. I'd never even come close to an award before. My lobster flooded me with praise and pictures, we sat and ate a post-race PB&J sandwich, scooped up my now-soiled wetsuit, and headed for home.
On the race website I checked my official times this afternoon. It turns out I came in 4th place, not third. But I don't care. It was a good day, and I'm back in the game.

Feels Like the First Time.

Isn't there an 80s big hair ballad with that line ("feels like the first time") referring to love or smoking dope or something like that?
Anyway, this Saturday's triathlon, Spirit of Racine, is starting to feel like the first one ever. Let me break it down:
A. The forecast calls for rain, and races don't cancel except for lightning. But it doesn't call for lightning, it calls for rain. Like normal humans, I don't go outside in the rain, at least not to hang out.
2. The swim is in Lake Michigan--current temperature at location, 66 degrees. I'll be racing in a wetsuit for the first time ever, and how on earth am I supposed to show off my well-toned calf muscles in a wetsuit??
D. I started training again about a week and a half after the accident, but can't hit my pre-accident times. I'm just not as fast as I used to be, so I've affixed a small outboard motor to the back of my bicycle.
5.2 This is the first all-out, puke-at-the-end race since the accident.

So I'm a little nervous. If you happen to be awake and aware at about 9:00 AM on Saturday, send a good vibe my way? Reader?

7-13-08--Danskin Triathlon

I had been to the Danskin triathlon last year, giddy with excitement but feeling like throwing up a little at the same time. But this year was different. I was there again, but not for me.
A while back my mother-in-law Tracy was deep in her new obsession with finding half-marathon races and walking them at breakneck speed. (Seriously, I've been out training with her--I have to jog to keep up.) We were comparing notes about our prospective athletics-of-choice, and from nowhere she had decided that with someone with her during the race as a guide (Tracy is legally blind) and with a whole lot of work (Tracy doesn't swim), she could do a triathlon too. She signed up for Danskin '08, which was yesterday.
We knew she wasn't the only first-timer; at the expo yesterday they asked for a newbie
show of hands and nearly every hand went up. It didn't matter--we could still feel the anxiety she felt as we walked to the transition area to set up this morning at 5:30 AM.



SIDEBAR: Triathlons are pretty short races overall--the winner is finished in a little over an hour. A person could complete a sprint and still have time in the day to go grocery shopping, meet a friend for a movie, cook brats on the grill for dinner, and finish a book. More importantly, there's time in my case to go back to bed for four hours, because the price you pay for your early finish is an early start. We live an hour from Danskin, which meant a 3:45 AM rise. That's freakin' early in the day.
We were in Wave 8 for the race, which (fortunately) meant not much time to get nervous. I requested a "swim angel" for Tracy. Swim Angels are volunteers with styrofoam noodles who accompany swimmers across the lake to offer support, encouragement, and styrofoam when needed. They were short a few angels, but gave me a noodle to use. I was her guide and her angel all in one. The countdown began and Tracy put on her Game Face.


I had told her all along to just "get through" the swim, and the rest will take care of itself. So here we were, in the middle of the lake, rotating between a made-up stroke on her back, a surprisingly strong sidestroke, and some kicking with the noodle. We saw swimmers cruise on by us, swimmers clinging to the rafts for a break, even a swimmer rescued from fatigue by a lifeguard, but mostly we saw a lot of women getting through the swim any way they knew how. We finished the swim 17 minutes faster than her estimated time. I think it's because she never stopped moving forward.

Our plan for the bike ride was for me to follow closely behind her so she could set the pace, and I would zoom ahead temporarily only if a turn or hill were coming. We scrapped that plan the moment we left the transition area; there were just too many bikers, spectators, cones, and volunteers. I led the way, looking back once in while to make sure we were still together.

SIDEBAR: My opthamologist prescribed a stronger prism for my eyeglasses this week--my double vision just isn't getting any better. The good news of this is that I'm now able to turn my head while moving; with the weaker prism I would've tipped over.

Many times I'd look back and hear a polite but chipper "I'm right behind you!" This was code for "C'mon Jenn move it, we can go faster than this." A few times I looked back and she wasn't there. This happened on steeper-than-rolling uphills, and her fat-tired bike combined with the 20 MPH headwind caused a few unannounced stops to walk the bike. I'd wait for her, we'd continue our trek, and before long I'd get another "Right behind you!" We finished the bike at the very beginning of our estimated range.

We already knew at this point that the race was hers. Tracy has completed three half-marathons in the past year, each one faster than the last. She was giddy with excitement in the first mile, chatting to no one in particular about how the day has gone so far.

Erika and Dan (Tracy's husband) had positioned themselves at several key points in our race, so we talked about the times we'd seen them and how surprised and excited they were at our progress so far.

Then it slowly dawned on her: If she buckles down and keeps a solid pace, she could beat her goal time...by twenty minutes. We stopped chatting. I can't walk at her pace, so I would jog ahead a little, stop to walk, and let her catch up to me. She jogged with me a few intervals.

When the finish line was in view we ran in with arms raised and big smiles. It was a victory for both of us. Tracy knew she could walk fast all day long if she wanted, but today she took a leap of faith and tried things she never thought she was capable of. And she succeeded. She felt on top of the world. For me, I got to run a race post-accident, without the pressure of beating my times or the girl next to me. I got to see if I would be able to get back in the game. And I did.


We crashed from our adrenaline highs on the ride home. Full of our post-race snacks (chocolate milk and a gluten free nut bar for me), Erika and I walked in the door and immediately sank into bed--for four hours.

Not a bad way to spend a day.