Tri-Not: Part 2

Welcome to the continuing saga of my lighthearted and parsifal-like romp through the world of triathlons. This particular segment is titled, appropriately: "Fools Rush in Where Angels Fear to Tread." In case you wonder about my role in this story, I can safely tell you that I'm no angel.

As our heroine approaches the eponymous tri, she begins to quail a bit about the swim. Each piece of sage tri-wisdom and real athlete advice to newbies holds that it is important, imperative, and perhaps even completely absolutely necessary to practice an open water swim before you do an open water tri.

so, it was with some small trepidation, but no real knowledge, that I, on the sunny summer sunday that was yesterday, hooked up with these people for one of their more "relaxed" open water swims.

Ok. I mean. I had no idea.

"These people" were CHANNEL SWIMMERS, (and i'm talkin English Channel, not HDTV), ALCATRAZ SWIMMERS, etc. These people swim a mile in the time it takes me to swim 10 lengths at the local Y pool. These people were going to swim a leisurely 4 miles that very morning.

I told them in no uncertain terms that I would be swimming maximum 1/2 mile. They told me the direction, and where to sight. They told me that a white building some ways off was the 1/2 mile turnaround point. I said OK. Then I got in with them. And that is the last I saw of them (til they regaled each other later with speeds and distances, as I crept back to the starting lifeguard chair to recover my belongings).

And the white building? Damned building was the white whale, and I was Ahab. Damned building mocked me. Damned building backed away from me like a blissful dream receding as you climb out of morpheus's tender embrace, leaving nothing but an imprint on your yearning mind.

Well, I was not scared at all. Nor panicked. Rather i had this odd feeling that I was the butt of some huge joke. Like, uh, was I headed the wrong way? Was the pier actually a moveable painted backdrop? They were kidding about the white building, weren't they? And further, what actually happened to my stroke (never very good, but certainly not this bird-in-a-dirt bath flutter and flop)?

I flipped onto my back. I pondered the fractals made in the water by my spastic limb-fluttering. I pondered the brown water and its unpleasant temperature. I swallowed some, purely experimentally, I assure you, and discovered that, yes, indeed, it was coney island sea water. I flipped onto my side. My butt and legs grew even heavier. I looked at the pier. It was no closer. I attempted some freestyle again, but, for the love of pete I could not for the life of me get the rhythm. I reasoned that I had two choices: either i continue freestyle and forget about breathing, or I do something else. I chose to execute my flailing version of the backstroke for a few minutes more.

And the white building? White building be damned. There would be no white building for me today.

When I got about 20 feet away from the pier, I decided I had had enough. I could not freestyle at all. I headed in. I checked my distance. Yes folks, cancer grrl, our perhaps a touch overconfident tri-newbie, managed about a 150 yard swim. Next saturday, she is to swim 820 yards, and then bike and run.

(insert laugh track, as clown takes a bow)

Well. I got out, slogged landlubberishly and sheepishly back to the starting chair, and told the lifeguard I had returned, lest they drag the surf for my body, probably still sporting a confused, disbelieving look on its face. Then, I defiantly put my running shoes on and lurched off for a much needed, soothing, ego calming, run on the boardwalk. THAT at least felt normal.

So, here's the moral of l'histoire, and the point where I get to add to tri-wisdom: Do not worry grasshoppper. There will always be someone worse trained than you are. In fact, if your tri is next weekend... that someone may well be me.