In the minutes before I decided to train for an Ironman-distance Triathlon, I was drinking a glass of red wine while Norah Jones sang softly in the background and the kids slept soundlessly in their rooms. So when Christina suggested (via Google Chat) that I follow her example and complete an Ironman myself, I was more receptive than I'd normally be. "Why not?" I thought. That was two months ago."Why!?!" That's what I wondered this morning as I attempted to squeeze my body into a wetsuit and prepared to jump into a lagoon in Redwood Shores. My first open water swim. Many doubts mixed with a little fear and (fortunately) a lot of excitement about the idea of trying something that had always been so daunting.
I jumped into the water (not very cold according my teammates, but frigid enough to take my breath away) and was pleasantly surprised that I could float without having to tread water. A little less fear...maybe I wasn't going to drown. The water was salty with a bit of a marshy scent. "Pee in your wetsuit", said one of the other bobbing heads nearby . I smiled. "No seriously - back away a little and pee in your wetsuit - it'll warm you up."
Feeling pretty toasty as the swim began, I soon started finding little problems that I hadn't expected. For one, all I could see when I looked down into the water was a pale green color (makes sense... yellow and blue make green, right?). As that was registering, I found my hands and head being kicked by the other swimmers on their way across the lagoon. Once I got myself out of the main body of swimmers, I tried to settle into the rhythm that I'd been working on at the pool, but my chest felt tight and I couldn't tell whether it was from the cold, the wetsuit, or just nerves. As I swam, I also realized that I didn't have a good way to gauge what direction I was headed in or whether I was really moving forward or not.
Ironically, the same Christina whose advice led me to be in the water in the first place had more advice as she swam next to me. "Relax....don't kick....you're in a wetsuit - just let your legs float by themselves..." Although I was getting tired just moving my arms repetitively through the water, this helped a lot. My form wasn't great and I frequently rolled over onto my back to rest, but eventually I pulled myself up onto the pier...tired, but happy to have completed the single day of training that had filled me with the most dread.
Well, maybe not exactly completed. Because this was followed by a 70-minute run on legs which felt heavy and numb. During this run I finally realized how challenging this goal of mine actually is... and how much additional training I have to do in order to get myself ready. Today was maybe a 1/2 mile swim and an 8 mile run. I'd need to add another 1.9 mile swim to this, PLUS 18.2 more miles running, PLUS 112 miles on a bike. Crazy.
