A Tale of Two Races - Part I

Part I

T-Man Half IM, New Hampshire

or, The Day I Almost Quit Triathlon

circa August 2010

The Good

At the end of the day, I remembered that I participate in triathlons for fun. And fun to me is certainly "racing" my own best times and "competing" with myself, but it's also being out there suffering with and cheering for others and in turn being cheered for.

The Bad

For reasons that I can only sort of articulate, T-Man was not fun.

The Ugly

(aka, the reasons I can only sort of articulate)

The race is huge. I was good about getting things done early this year but the traffic and people still seem to take a lot out of me. Everything takes so long.

I was in the last wave. In a race this big, the last wave is over an hour after the first wave.

The conditions deteriorated as the day went on (and, did I mention I was in the last wave?). Thus, the water was choppier - disorganized lake chop - and I couldn't wait to be done swimming. That is never a good way to start a long day.

Starting that far back and being a less then super biker, made for a pretty lonely 56 miles. It also started raining. I dropped my chain. I forgot that the end of the course was net uphill.

I was happy to be off my bike but as I set on the run, I saw most of my friends finishing up the run. It was raining. I wanted to put on my sweatpants and hang out. But instead I had to run a half marathon. In the rain.

Maybe it's the back of the pack, or maybe it was the rain, but last year it seemed like everyone on the double loop run was cheering and chatting and having a good time. This year ... *crickets*. Except for the poor dudes who commented on my smile and friendly demeanor (seriously, this is one of the rare times in life when I'm friendly and chatty with strangers) the third time I saw them I made them promise to stay on the course until I passed them again. Of course as soon as they promised and I was pass them, it stopped raining and started pouring. I hoped they would go back on their promise and go inside. They didn't, they were still there as promised and it made me smile.

But, at the end of the race, I still declared myself unfit for triathlon. I was going to look for a new sport. Or maybe just run.

(More Good)

Then I drank a beer. Or three. And ate an oreo cookie, or 8, and remembered the good and started plotting a come back - I could find a small, local race perhaps reminiscent of my most favorite race and it could be fun ...

I woke up at 3 am unable to sleep and ate some more oreo cookies and looked up races on my iphone. One month later I would be back ...