We woke up before the sun. We were at the race before the sun. We were mostly ready to race before the sun. This is a triathlon.
I do not know what is happening.
There aren’t really any pictures because The Yankee and I were both in the race and all of our friends are too sensible to be here. And it doesn’t seem as if there were any race photographers. Though I did see one guy on the river overlook taking pictures, so I cleaned up my form for him.
I do not recall if that was before or after I hit the bridge.
I hit a bridge.
But we’ll come to that. This was a time trial start. Apparently this means you don’t go off in waves with people of your gender and age group, but just whenever you get in the water.
We were here:
On the far side of the Chattahoochee River is Russell County in the great state of Alabama. We are standing in the great state of Georgia. There is a gate in that railing and through it we walked down some stairs, all in rubber swim caps and various amounts of spandex and lycra, straining to not hear the starting instructions.
We walked off the stairs and onto a floating pier. There a woman took your race number and you crossed the timing pad and leaped into the water.
This was only a 550-meter swim, and the current in the Chattahoochee was up so everyone’s times were quite good. Even mine, and I haven’t been swimming a lot because the repetitive motion of the freestyle stroke aggravates my shoulder. No matter, my poor and modified breaststroke, plus this current set a time I will likely never better.
So that’s the good news: I improved my time from the Ft. Benning reverse sprint tri earlier this year. The bad news is that I swam into a bridge.
See that bridge? Just to the left of the margin there is one more support column in the water. They told us to stay to the left shore so we all aimed at the buoys and raced. I was about 10 yards away from the column and still managed to swim into the support structure, cracking my right thigh on the thing, hard.
The only other bad part about the swim was exiting. You had to make a 180-degree turn to a boat ramp, meaning you are now fighting the previously helpful current. And the person in front of me at the time decided to do that on his back. Only he couldn’t, because this was some stiff water, and he was swimming on his back. Guy cut me off twice.
Anyway, out of the water, up the hill, a slow transition and then onto the bike.
We soft pedaled this course last night, and found it a nice mix of roads and bike trails and almost entirely flat. It looks like this:
The only problem being that between miles six and seven I flatted my front tire. After a slow change I realized my two CO2 cartridges didn’t work and I managed to ruin the valve for them, too. So I resigned myself to pushing my bike the rest of the way in. Everyone had passed me by now, which was a shame because I had been making some decent time.
Two locals, not in the race, came along after I’d already walked my bike about a mile and offered the use of their hand pump. They gave me some air and disappeared into the morning mist. I finished my route passing random casual cyclists and runners, dragging a complete and total angry attitude around the rest of the course.
I finally made it back to the transition area and set out for the run. I was the last person to join the course, a meandering thing that weaves through a streets perpendicular to the Chattahoochee in lovely downtown Columbus.
And I learned an important truth. Everyone in Columbus lies.
“Almost there!” doesn’t mean what you think it means.
I crossed paths with the last three runners on the route as they were in a double-back section of the course and the first guy said “The turnaround is at that fence!”
This was encouraging. Made it to that fence and the route continued. The last lady said “The turnaround is at that cop!”
Well. I can see him, so a little more then. I reached the officer and he says, “Around the corner is where you turn around!”
I round the corner and still have half a block to go. But I made the turn and retraced my steps, meaning I had finished half the run.
Now the helpful police officers, ready to go home after a busy morning of protecting us in intersections, are starting to cheer me on. “Almost there! Almost there!”
No, I’m not. I pointed out to one officer that everyone is saying that, and I’d like a number please. About one more mile, he said. That, I told him over my shoulder, is not almost there.
Then a motorcycle officer decided he’d ride his machine behind me and cheer me on. So I’m now a part of the slowest speed chase in the history of Columbus law enforcement. He’s telling me “Almost there! Almost there!” as I’m actively coming to disdain the concept of motorcycle police, and I grew up on CHiPs.
More officers, more cheering and this really is starting to feel like more than a 5K and my leg is going numb. I’d wondered if running blocks would have a positive or negative psychological effect since we’ve been running on a wooded path. Now I know.
“Home stretch. Almost there!”
I was at least thinking clearly enough — remember, I’ve been thoroughly and disproportionately angry since I had a flat tire, which was after I swam into a stupid bridge — that I chose to not say anything crass to an officer of the law.
The home stretch lasted forever, and I tracked down one of those last three runners. I was poised to close the gap, but they started singing to her at the finish line. It was her birthday, so I pulled up. The emcee announced me as the last runner, and I wanted to take the mic and ask the organizers where this supposed SAG wagon of theirs was. And then question the Army Corps of Engineers or whomever put that bridge up because, really. But I got my happy little finishers medal. I found the oranges and the electrolyte drinks.
So in about an hour I went from “This is the stupidest thing ever” to “Maybe I should make my evaluation about the merit of a healthy exercise on a day when things go as they are supposed to. That’d be fair. And why are you mad about something intended to be fun, anyway?”
I didn’t get to see the posted times at the race because I wisely chose a sports massage on my thigh. Later, as I peeled my tri-suit off, I found a red mark on my upper quad, about six or seven inches long and shaped like a hook. The sports therapist said she could feel precisely where it was. Ice and movement, she said.
Naturally we came home and I took a nap.
Later in the evening the race times were posted to the website. My pre-race goals were to survive and finish, to improve “somewhat” on my swim time and improve “significantly” on my run time, to not be last overall and to not be last in my age group,
I achieved the first goal, obviously. My swim time was impressive, thanks Chattahoochee. My run time from the Ft. Benning race was very slow as we’d “trained” exactly three times before that race. In reality there was no choice but to improve, and happily, I did, dropping 20 percent off that terrible time. As it was a time trial start my being the last person on the course didn’t necessarily mean I was last overall. Indeed, I was fourth from the last among the men. In my age bracket, a five-year span, I was third from last. So I’d like to thank the tube that went flat inside my kevlar tire for putting me in such a mood.
If I took The Yankee’s bike time — she had a fine race, of course, burning everyone up in the swim and all but the most serious cyclists on the road — then I would have moved up about 20 slots. But that means nothing. My “bad luck” was a flat. Big deal.
Now I have to set new goals. I’d like to stay close to this swim pace, purely wishful thinking on my part owing to the rapid current of the river. In my next race I’m also going to cut another four or five minutes off my run.
And not swim into a bridge.
