Beej Gets Butt kicked at Triathlon

So the last couple of weeks I had been debating about whether to do this indoor Triathlon at the UofA. Finally about 10 minutes before the deadline I decided to do it. I signed the waiver to exempt the University from liability and thought about how I was going to train for this even that started in 3 days. Two days before the event I saw how long it would take me to do the stuff. I did 20km on a bike and ran 5km. Doing this was probably a mistake because I wasn't really conditioning myself and I was only really just getting my muscles sore but anyways I've made greater mistakes in my life (like signing up for the triathlon from the get-go!) Anyways, Saturday morning arrived and I spent most of the morning drinking water and packing and re-packing my bag because I was very nervous. The other sad thing is that I didn't even get to practice swimming once and I haven't really done any swimming since I had swim classes at Confed. pool way back in like Junior High school so I wasn't exactly sure if I was even going to be able to survive this thing. Anyways, I drank a ton of water and had to go to the bathroom about 13 times, that water was going through me faster than a fat guy going through a timed all you can eat buffet line (buffets are true athletic events as far as I'm concerned).

So I get to the check-in location and they give me a free pair of shoes just for showing up it was a door prize that I won. Sadly, they don't fit anybody a size 8? After that I got some pictures with some other friends who were doing it. Of course I was very nervous and made a few more trips to the bathroom (honestly I wasn't that nervous but I did drink a ton of water).

So here's how it went down. There was a swim which was 500m which were swam lengthwise in lanes in the pool. Then there was 20km on stationary bikes and finally a 5km run around the track. The swim was by far the worst, not training and not having swam in about 8-12 years really made it a true challenge. The skinny is I got my trash kicked by the pool. I did one length (25m) front crawl but found it to be a little too strenous, not quite my style, and I had trouble breathing, so, I decided to switch to the breast stroke. I did a couple lengths of that but then found that to be too challenging can you believe it! So I switched to the back stroke. By this time I was moving about as fast as a sloth. Finally back crawl became too much for little Beejster to handle so I had to resort to the one where you're on your back and you move your arms and legs like a frog. I think it's called elementary back stroke. Needless to say I was the second last one out of the pool and being a 23 year old male in supposively peak physical condition it wasn't my brightest moment. About half-way through I did entertain the thought of giving up but like a 10 year old thinking there might be candy if I finished I decided to push on. My time in the swim was 15:02 which was ridicusously slow but I predicted that it would take my 45 minutes so I decided to look for the positives rather than the negatives.

Then came the bike and this was something I could relate to a little better. I did have to change by wrapping a towel around my waist and putting my shorts on which was somewhat awkward with so many people around but that's how it goes I guess. Not much to say about the bike except a) these bikes were weird, b) my odometer started dying about half-way through which gave me a scare and c) my butt is really, really sore. I think I need to have the Doctor check to see if I got testicular cancer cause my boys are really hurting. Anyways, I was able to make up for lost time on the bike and finally hit the track. My biking time was about 42 minutes.

I hit the track and at this point you just want the thing to be over so I ran as hard as I could. The annoying thing was that we had to go 25 times around the track and it got just a little monotonous. The other thing is that when you are tired and running around in a circle so much you kind of lose track of how many laps you've done. For instance it felt like I had done 30 or something by the time the guy at the counter finally called "number 85 final lap" I uttered a quick hallelujah and ran my last lap as fast as my aching, sore, stiff, tired, fatigued, cramped, pinched, annoyed, agitated, exhausted body could move and finally crossed the finish line. My time in the run was 23 minutes. My overall time for the entire event was 1:20:36 (1 hour 20 minutes and 36 seconds) and let me tell you my body felt every second of that. I got 28th place out of 44 which considering I was second last out of the pool wasn't so bad. Considering it was my first one and I hadn't really trained I felt I didn't do so bad. I should also say that it was spectacular, it was so much fun I can totally see why people get addicted to doing this kind of stuff because I can't really explain it but it's almost a surreal experience pushing your body to the limit and then just pushing some more. It was really really fun. Anyways, this has been a really long entry and I have to go to bed but I've been trying to make up for not writing on the blog ever.