mantras and murmurs.

friday night, meg and i and all the other interns ate dinner at a beautiful old house in fair haven that was featured on "if these walls could talk" really awesome! we got a great tour because our boss, chris, was trying to get us out of the kitchen while he prepared the grillin's. unfortunately for everyone else, meg and i did the shopping. what do 2 pre-triathlon-ers buy for 16 people to eat for dinner? vegetables, carbs, vegetables with carbs, a little meat, and water. luckily, someone else had already planned to bring beer. i started getting nervous at about 5:30... on the day i registered... 2 months ago. so by 7:30 this friday night, i was nearly speechless. meg and i had spent the day checking in on what we'd consumed "have you finished that bottle of water?" "what are you eating? what are you eating next? when?" our mantra had been "drink water".

i had done everything i was supposed to, even ate really well in the days leading up (not an easy task when you don't give yourself a lunch or dinner break normally), and started hydrating like crazy with plenty of time to spare. the evening was fun and ended with chris giving each of us FES coffee mugs with URI stickers on them with nicknames he'd thought of for each of us based on our activity and personality this summer. mine was "swim+bike+plant." he said it was because i always came cruising in on my bike to the office, hair wet from swimming, and ready to run out and plant. not a bad reputation to have i think :)

meg and i left the fun at about 8:15 but not until colleen (our other boss, and herself a newly minted competitive swimmer) gave us some wisdom from her triathlete sister: "have a mantra and repeat it every step of the race" her's is: "i am so fast"... i tried it out a few times and meg and i toyed with "i am a rockstar" and "i am so strong." they all made us nervous. it had been rainy and COLD all day, so we started talking about things to pack that had never crossed our minds: long-sleeve shirts to run in, pants for the bike ride, a sweatshirt for the morning. we went home, packed, called each other 3 times ("are you bringing a...? how about... ?") and finally said goodnight in preparation for our 4 am start. mantra: "i've got it all"

i think i finally closed my eyes around 10:15, fell straight to sleep, and proceeded to wake up every 45 minutes to check the clock ("go back to sleep") until 3:55 am, 5 minutes before my alarm, and knew it was time to face the music...

i ate some dry cereal and drank a bunch of water first thing, trying to jumpstart my digestive system. read any race book - there's more about bodily functions in it than there are training tips. a lot more. "i hope i poop."

i got dressed, double-checked for my goggles, shoes, socks, and bike shorts, and brushed my teeth. "i'm never doing this again" keeps great time with the teeth-brushing rhythm.

teeth brushed, full of dread, i started moving things downstairs and heard kelsey's volvo pull up. how could this have worked out any better? the only car that doesn't make me carsick in the backseat - my mom drove one for 16 years - is the one taking me to my death, i mean, my first triathlon. this made sitting in the back while meg co-piloted in the front a better experience than i could have hoped for, especially considering i'd forgotten the tums.

we got lost. for an hour. luckily, we'd given ourselves plenty of time, but we still got there with only about 5 minutes to spare before the mandatory pre-race talk at 6:45. this meant we had to set up our transition area, pee, get body-marked and tagged with our numbers, take off all the clothes we were wearing in the cold morning and get ready to swim, pee, put on swim cap and goggles, pee, and stand in the starting area. 4 of our friends showed up at about 6:55, just in time to snap a few pictures of us getting ready and hug us all before we went in. it was so GREAT to have them there, i had no idea what it would mean to have a cheering section, but it meant the world and i'm not sure what i would have done without them!

the water was delightfully warm... 75 degrees :) perfect. even warmer because it was a chilly morning though i'm sure none of us felt it, the adrenaline had already started warming us. "don't drown."

i almost drowned. in the first minute i did the panicky thing where i hate lakes and start hyperventilating. i did a few strokes, swallowed some water, did a few strokes breast stroke, swallowed some water, flipped over on my back, kicked a little and looked up at the sky. it was so beautiful. i flipped over, took a few slow strokes and thought of what kelley (meg's and my swim coach) would say. "breathe out fully under water, then come up for a breath..." "be sure your hand comes out of the water first, complete your stroke under water next to your knee..." "kick if you have to, but it's okay to save your legs..." "rotate your body so you're slicing through..."

when i reached the first bouy, i remembered i was in a race, made it to the left side of the bouy and focused on passing the lady in the wet suit... then the lady in the white straps... then the girl on my left... i finished the swim in 19:17 for 83rd place and disappointed that the swim was over already. not bad for a full minute lost. goal for next time: 17:45. i can swim the distance in a pool in 17:00 (no flip turns) but that's with no pressure. :)

i ran out of the lake and along the road - i couldn't believe i could run - most of the way to the transition area then tried to focus on getting changed for the bike. i pulled off my swim top and put my shirt on over a wet sports bra, pulled bike shorts on over wet swim bottoms, socks on over wet grass on wet feet, shoes on over wet socks, helmet on over matted hair, chris' camel-back over my now wet t-shirt. T1=5:09. way too long considering all i did is typed above. goal: 2:30. with more staging time, no problem.

i got on my bike at the bike start and felt like i was just going to class. then i realized, "i only have enough training to get to class. so i can ride for 9 miles but it's going to be slow and hard," and it was. it was also FREEZING. luckily i'd stuffed a jacket in the camel-back the night before, so i hopped off at mile 2, zipped up, grabbed my go-lean bar and got back on, except "where can i put a go-lean bar if i'm only eating 2 half-bites of it?" as much as women complain about boobs, combined with a sports bra they make a very nice storage place for one's mid-race snacks, and easy access when i needed another half-bite at mile 6.

mile 5 was the "pot hole mile" we'd been warned. luckily, i have a very good bike agent and my y-trek mountain bike with slicks on, though it looks ridiculous, was a champion and i knew exactly what posture i wanted to be in. after all, how many times have i ridden down college street with a backback on? if there's one thing i can handle, it's pot holes. "i am a rockstar i am a rockstar"

if there's one thing i can't handle, it's big-ass hills with no end in sight. had i known how long this hill was going to be, i wouldn't have started walking quite so early. i bet i could have made it half-way up riding, but figured i'd just hop off and hop back on at the top. "what was i thinking?"
i rolled into the transition zone pretty winded, but there were kim and chris and angie and tara all yelling my name and telling me i was awesome. so i decided to believe them. i finished the 9 miles in 41:12, good enough for 108th place. with a road bike i know i could knock 5 minutes off, but until i have money for that, i'm shooting for 38:00 next go 'round.

but after i pulled off all my now half-dry biking clothes i could barely tie my sneaks. my hands were shaking so i grabbed another bite of go-lean and another sip of water and started over again. again, kim, chris, angie, and tara were there, cheering me on. i yelled "i can't believe i'm still alive!" made it out of T2 in 2:43, surprisingly quick considering i had to stop and try again while just tying my shoes - until i tell you that before i reached the first turn of the run, i realized i'd forgotten to change my shorts and was running in long, padded bike shorts. oops. i forgot in the next 5 seconds because i turned to look up another hill.

half-way up, i decided to walk, 3 miles is a long way to go when you've already been going for over an hour, and at that point, it didn't even occur to me that many people had probably already finished. a soft-looking woman in her mid-30s passed me, still running, and i thought "well shit" but then the "R" on the back of her leg made me feel a little better. the relay participants do one leg each, so she was fresh and just starting out. besides, i'm not a runner.

uphill for 1.7 with a beautiful horse farm on the left out over the valley. the scenery was amazing, and i focused on identifying some trees i wasn't that familiar with while i put one foot in front of the other. ultimately, i think i ran a lot more up the hill than i walked, but i guess i won't know. "i can't believe what i can do!" downhill was a little painful, jarring, but it was ALL downhill, which was refreshing. so for 1.7 downhill, i just let my feet catch my falling body as i tried to take bigger strides, pushing out the last miles of this morning. at one point, when no one was around, i said out loud "i can't believe what i can do!" and thanked God for giving me the drive and the will and the luck on the day to make it all happen. of course, i had to pee. and the running makes it worse, and running downhill makes it even worse for some reason. as i started the last descent, i could hear the crowd cheering on the runners in front of me and i think i started crying a little, but it was nothing compared to seeing kim, chris, angie, tara, kelsey, and meg all waiting for me at the last turn, and meg running with me down the last stretch yelling "5 yards of mulch!" finished the run in 36:42 for 110th place in the run and 1:45:03 for 102nd overall. considering my goal was to finish, we're calling this a tremendous success :)

i crossed the finish line and turned, sobbing, into meg's shoulder, where all the sweat, bruises, and pulled muscles (literally: it was her trapezius) of the summer knew understanding and love. not only had we moved 200-lb trees all day, shoveled yards and yards of soil and mulch in the sweltering heat, and stayed late at the office making arrangements and putting tools away, but we'd gotten up at 6 for swimming, run on the mornings we had a brief reprieve from shoveling, and biked the few opportunities we had. i had done it. we had done it. and we are officially rockstars.