Kind of on a whim I decided to go and do the Mountain Man Triathlon here at Walla Walla. This was one of the shorter one, no Iron Man or anything… 500 yd swim, 12 km bike race, and then a 5 km run. Not really sure why I wanted to do a triathlon, I’ve always loathed the idea of doing one before. But I did it.
I knew my chances of success were high. My reasons being: (1) I’ve never swam a lap in a pool in my life (back in the day my sister passed me up in swimming lessons…); (2) Who really needs a nice mountain bike with 24 inch tires or shocks or anything when you have a fully capable 30 lb BMX? (3) and lastly I had only run once in maybe a month… So pretty much I was in top-notch shape!
The day was pretty wet, a bunch of rain. Maybe not ideal weather to do a triathlon. I thought about not doing it, but then I was thinking that it would just be more of an adventure. After I thought that, I was in.
10 minutes after my last class on Friday I showed up at the gymnasium on campus where the pool was at. Originally everything was going to be at Bennington Lake, but it had been mostly drained because of the dam structure there or something. Anyway it was going to be 10 laps at the pool, I had thrown a bunch of stuff into my car before class knowing I wouldn’t have time after class. I crammed my BMX bike, running shoes, and my board shorts in the trunk and was ready. After signing my life away on the waiver, I see guys strutting in in their speedos and stuff. People say speedos and stuff help with the drag in the water, I figured that my board shorts would work for me. There were too many of us to all swim at once, so we had to go in heats. They had everyone that swam 500 yards in over eight minutes swim first. I was hesitant to go with that group, but since there was an extra space right there next to me I hopped in.
They said ready, set, go and I was off. I do my front stroke swim thing to the other wall, and as I turn around (I don’t believe in those flip things, way too much effort…) I see some people behind me and I know instantly I have it made. Before I knew it, it was over! No, just kidding. I was only able to do a front stroke for the first half of the first lap, then I had to switch to the one I knew best: the Pencil, Chicken, Airplane deal. That’s what I remembered from when I was way little, so I went with it. In less than half way through for me, the first person was finished. I didn’t take it too hard, I didn’t even know! I was having a hard enough time staying afloat. When everyone else had gotten out all eyes were on me. The camera man with the waterproof camera had no one else to take shots of, so he followed suit. Finally I finished the 500 yards in 13:30, and way more people than I knew cheered. I’m pretty sure it was because I was the one favored to win, not because they were impatient for the next heat… It turns out that the first guy got a 6:27, okay so I had a bad swim, everyone does now and then!
We then drove to the lake, my poor legs were so sore, I thought they might cramp up if I was to drive. So I let my sister Alison drive. We all unloaded our bikes and everything and sat there next to the starting line ready to go. They told us that we’d start the clock at 6:27 since that’s when the first swimmer came in, and that we’d have to wait until our swim time came up on the clock before we could start. I was thinking, whew… more time to stretch before my 13:30 comes up. There were some nice bikes there, some probably cost at least a couple thousand. But what do I know? I’m no bike expert, all I noticed was that my bike only had one brake, the wheels were 4 inches shorter than theirs, it had no suspension, and no gears.
Finally my time came up and then I headed off on that muddy trail. It was real hard to stay vertical I found. When it is muddy, your bike brakes don’t work quite as good, and I only had one. So it was a chore. My shoes soon became muddy and it was hard to keep them on the pedals. I gave it all I had, it was hard. I only had to walk up a few hills. Under normal circumstances I could have made it up, but with the mud and no gears, it was impossible. I had to hoist that big hunk of metal up on my shoulder and get moving, I had people to catch up to. I took a couple of wrong turns, I’ll blame it on the rain making the signs fall down. Several times I had to get off and scoop all the mud that was making my tire not turn any more, it would just clog up between the brake pads and all up around the tire. All part of the fun. Finally I catch up to two people and pass them, it was great. Someone later had to deflate my excitement by telling me they had chain trouble. Didn’t matter, I passed two people. For the last 3/4 mile or so there was pavement, that was great. I tried to stop at the end and almost plastered a couple of people, those muddy brakes…
Then I was off on the run. It was also hard to run, especially uphill, in the mud. Super slippery. I managed to keep up my 9:30 min/mile pace pretty much the whole time. Then I passed one more person. He was walking in jeans. And then all of the sudden I was done! There were some bananas they were giving out, I ate tons.
You can check out the race results here: http://mitchd.com/files/Mountain_Man_2009.pdf I’m still waiting for that trophy… when it comes I’ll post a picture of it. In the mean time check out the pictures of the race my sister took here, she took some good ones: http://photos.mitchd.com/ If you’ve read all of this, I commend you.
