DNF

If you don't know what DNF means, that's a good thing. I remember once going to a swim meet with my SIL and a little girl came up to us crying. My SIL asked her why she was crying and the little girl said, "I DNF'd." My SIL rubbed her cold arms and said in such a nice and sincere way, "Oh, that's great!!!" The girl screamed and ran away. Little did she know that DNF means Did Not Finish.

I have had one DNF in my tri career. It was the Pacific Coast Tri and the day before the water looked great so I wasn't too worried about the swim portion. Of course, as always, I was throwing up out the window on the way to the race because of my pre-race nerves but at least it took my mind off the hilly bike course.

We set up our transition areas, squeezed into our wetsuits (which is the most exhausting part of the race!) and off we went down the hill to the shore. To my dismay the waves were enormous. I've never learned to duck dive and these waves were so big you had to duck dive to get past them. My husband proceeded to teach me how to do it but every time I tried I got nailed to the floor of the ocean and dragged along. After three attempts they were starting the race and my husband left me saying, "If you don't think you can do it, don't. If you panic out there you could get hurt or killed." I stood there watching everyone dive under the waves while tears rolled down my face. As much as I wanted to, I just didn't have the nerve or skill to do so. I had to do the walk of shame and walked back to the transition area, stripped off my wetsuit and put on my normal clothes so I could go out and be a cheerleader instead.

Next time, I'll remember to pack my pom poms...

Fish Head

After years of training I was finally about to face the biggest race of my life - Ironman. There's nothing like two thousand of your closest friends, whom you've never met, all swimming in place waiting for Mike to tell us we can begin.

Imagine drowning rats in a washing machine all trying to claw their way to the top. I don't know if we looked like that but it sure felt like that. Minus the tails fortunately. When I was finally able to claw my way to the outside of the swimmers I was able to settle into the swim.

I was swimming along merrily when all of a sudden my head hit something hard and I thought it was someone's foot. So I reached out in front of me and to my horror it was a giant, bloated, dead fish staring at me through milky eyes. At that moment I started screaming like a little girl and went completely upright in the water frantically trying to scoot the dead creature away. Unfortunately I grabbed the attention of a lifeguard who thought I was drowning and tried to come to my rescue. I pointed at the cause of my terror and quickly swam away leaving him and the dead fish in my wake.

Other than the brutal swim start, bumping heads with a dead fish, a major foot cramp, a neck hickey and a few moments of hyperventilation, the 2.4 mile swim was pretty uneventful.

The one must have doing a long swim in a wetsuit is this - Especially where the velcro is on the back of your neck!

Swimming Through Floaties

After my first tri swim attempt I decided I was going to have to take the swim training seriously and that training like the Clif Bar commercial wasn't such a bad idea after all. Okay, so I wasn't going to get my friends to smack me with paddles, although I'm sure they would have been more than happy to oblige.

I wanted to make sure my practice swims were as close to open water tri swims as possible. The pool I trained in was a tiny 20 yard pool with 4 narrow lanes so I asked my husband to swim with me in the same lane. Seems easy enough, right? Since there's no blue line to follow in lakes or oceans I thought it would be a good idea to close my eyes while doing this as well. To get the true feeling of panic you get when you can't see, you're nervous, cold and knocking into people I made sure he purposely swam over me, hit me, grabbed my feet and all the other fun things that go on during the swim. Now to top it all off, this was not a plan or idea of my own, the oh-so-nice pool worker would pour bleach in my lane while I was swimming. I'm not sure why and it wasn't a pleasant experience but I was hoping it would kill the giant hairballs and what frighteningly looked like poop balls floating around.

The things we do to train for a tri...

Pencil, Not Pancake!

Move over Greg Louganis, there's a new high diver in town! I put him to shame. Or did I shame him?

It all started on an island in the Bahamas called Long Island. My husband and I went to visit the deepest blue hole in the world and there was a cliff right above it beckoning him. Notice I said him and not me. I was scared to death of that cliff, not loving heights in any way shape or form and there was no way I was climbing up it to jump off. At least I didn't think so until those words spurted out of his mouth. Yes, he actually had the nerve to dare me. I can't not accept a dare so I managed to climb to the top and as I looked down I noticed I couldn't manage to stand up. I was nervously grabbing a twig low to the ground because my knees were shaking uncontrollably. Here's an actual picture of my husband on top off said cliff ->

Looking down into the dark abyss I knew I only had two choices. I could either jump and risk life and limb or I could do the walk of shame and climb back down the cliff. The walk of shame is never an option for me, even if it's to my detriment. I heard Wade yell at me, "Make sure you land like a pencil." So being the ever obedient wife I am, I followed his advice and took the giant leap into the ocean while keeping my hands at my sides, trying to think pencil-like. I'm a little butt heavy so I landed more like a pancake than a pencil. I can't even imagine what I looked like but the expressions on people's faces around me painted the horrific picture for me.
If I were in a diving contest for best butt flop, I would have scored a perfect 10!


My lovely war wounds lasted a couple of weeks ->

Lucky Girl

Not all swimmers are humans. Leave it to me to find this out on a gigantic level.

I'd like to tell you about a fearless swimmer I met many years ago. Swimming was her life, her love and passion. Her name is Lucky and she's a Leatherback turtle. Lucky introduced herself to me one night in Grenada as my husband and I were strolling along the beach. It was the night we arrived to this small island and we were exhausted but we decided to walk along the beach before calling it a night. All of a sudden we heard what sounded like a dying cow so we turned back and Lucky was dragging herself to shore after an assumed long swim.

It turned out Lucky was coming to shore to give birth. Wade filled me in on Leatherbacks, how they're almost extinct and that the locals would most likely kill her if they saw her. Luckily we were the only two on the beach...at least for awhile. We spent several hours with Lucky, the gentle sea giant, helping her dig her hole to nest her babies. It was surreal and it felt like she actually trusted enough to let us help. At one point two men were approaching so Wade and I went about 60 yards away, pretended to make out in the sand to try and distract them but with a wave of sand shooting over 100yards with each flipper flick by Lucky, she was hard to miss.

Long story short, they threatened to kill Lucky unless we gave them $1000 in cash. We ended running up to our hotel, grabbing the manager who quickly drove us back down to shore. They already had Lucky tied up to a tree so Wade and I ran down and untied her head and flippers as the manager and men argued. The police came a few minutes later and were as corrupt as the men but the manager was on our side. They tried to confuse Lucky with flashlights making her go in circles so I decided to slowly walk down to the ocean and Wade followed suit. Lucky, for whatever reason, followed us into the water and out to sea. We stood there watching this magical creature until we could no longer see her.

Did I mention Lucky was huge? The swim moral of the story: if something this big and lean can swim, it proves that anyone can!

Tri Newbie's 1st Swim

You could feel the nervous energy in the air as everyone huddled together like baby seals. Everyone just wanted to start the race, nervously staring at the water. We were all discussing how the swim looked more like 800 yards than the 500 yards the race director claimed it to be. Looking back at my swim time, I still demand a remeasure!

Finally my wave started, I strapped on my Women's Vanquisher goggles and headed into the lake. The water was freezing! They said the water was 68 degrees but without the sun being up it felt more like 40. It took my breath away and I had a hard time putting my face in the water. I started to panic so I completely stopped and bobbed my body upright to catch my breath when to my pleasure, I realized I could touch the ground! I quickly demised a plan of water jogging the swim portion rather than trying to swim it! I could easily run 500/800 yards in a shallow lake!

Unfortunately my plan didn't work when I realized the people behind me were quickly approaching and would soon be swimming over me. What was I going to do? I did the smart thing...I swam backstroke. Had I ever practiced that stroke? Nope. Did I really even know how to do it? Not at all. But I was very comfortable in the water being able to see who was coming up on me and knowing that I could smack them before they could smack me! Hey, it's all about survival right? Plus, I got a chance to chat with the lifeguards out there in the kayaks. They paddled next to me as we discussed the race and how I probably wasn't going to win it.

The best part was after the race when I was talking to a 12 time Ironman who had been a lifeguard on the shore during the race. She told me, "I saw this person out there flailing around and I thought I was going to have to save them. I was really worried, grabbed my stuff and started to head in. Then I realized they were okay and they actually did the whole race swimming backstroke. I never took my eyes off of them." I was mortified and replied with a shy, "Oh, she was fine. That was my friend, Beth."

:o

The Urinator

If you're considering doing your first tri, I highly recommend this book -


It gave me all the info I needed on how often I should train, what I should expect and most importantly how to set up my transition area. I still to this day refer back to the book and all the notes I've written in it before every tri.

After several months of swimming, cycling and jogging running I felt ready for my first sprint tri. The day of the race I had everything packed including my Camelback, gloves, bike socks, cycling clothes, running clothes, 3 pairs of shoes, food...okay so maybe I looked I was going on a 5 day cruise instead of a sprint tri but I was a nervous newbie!

I'm not sure who told me this but someone said that to become a true triathlete you had to pee in your wetsuit. So there I was, standing in the sand, waiting for my wave to start when I decided it was time to become a true triathlete. Here's another tip-if you're going to pee make sure you're in the water while you do so. Unfortunately nobody gave me that advice so I had to learn the hard way. I felt so proud of myself until I looked down and saw that I was standing in a giant puddle of pee. I was horrified. It rivaled the lake we were about to swim in.

Fortunately I'm a quick thinker and there was a gal standing next to me with her back toward me. I stealthily moved away from my pee puddle while giving her a look of disgust as if she were The Urinator. I think everyone around me bought it because I saw a lot of dirty looks thrown in her direction. Sweet relief!

The time is coming to tell you about my first swim attempt. Looking back at how it went, let's just say that I wish I would have followed this Clif bar commerical's training advice ->