(Written September, 2005)

I ran my first triathlon this morning.  I welcomed the 5:00 wake-up call, not because I was rested, but because it signaled the end to a fitful sleep.  My mind refused to stop working through the various problems that I expected to encounter in the morning.  My friend Matt and I rolled out of our beds, pulled on our clothes and inventoried our gear before jumping on our bikes for the ride to the transition area just down the road.

As we entered the “athletes only” zone I gave a rather fit young woman permission to mark my body.  After marking my race number (366) on my leg and my arms, she asked my age.

“35”, I answered, and she wrote it in indelible black ink on my right calf.

“Wow, your first year in a new age group!” 

I didn’t have the nerve to tell her that it was my first year in any age group, so I just smiled, thanked her, and wheeled my bike toward the racks.

I pretended to carefully place my gear in the transition area.  I was pretending because I’d never done this before, and had no idea what I was doing (a fact that would become abundantly clear later).  A volunteer interrupted my pretend concentration by telling me my “vehicle” was facing in the wrong direction. 

Once my bike was hung and my gear was placed, I stood in the dark, mostly naked and holding my goggles and a powder blue swim cap.  Your swim cap color determines your start time, and your start time is based on your estimated swim time.  My estimated swim time apparently merited a powder blue cap, but at least I didn’t get day glo pink.

Someone with a megaphone announced that we should all hurry to the swim start area, so I walked, still mostly naked and barefoot, several hundred yards through grit, gravel and mud to the swim start.  I didn’t need to hurry, because that’s where we waited for the next hour.

As we were waiting for the sun to rise and the race to start, I observed the gathering racers.  They were all shapes and sizes, but the predominant shape was flat, and the most common size was slim.  I am neither.  Matt is both.  Matt and I met through our wives who were sorority sisters.  He was a college athlete (a good one) and an underwear model after that.  He still looks the part.  I really wanted to beat Matt.

As I was observing these people, I suddenly realized that we were all wearing a piece of information that I normally have to guess at – our age.  Matt’s calf said “31”.  He’s actually 32, but claimed he forgot his own age when his body was marked earlier in the morning.  Notwithstanding that others may have made the same error, or told a convenient lie, I suspect that most of the ages were accurate.  We had everything from “13” to “74”.  I learned that our numbers were also based on age.  The girl whose right calf said “13” was race number 1 and the man whose calf read “74” was race number 600.  Almost anything you do at 13 or 74 is impressive, but at 35 you are too old to be precocious and too young to impress by merely trying.   35 is when professional athletes retire, before people start to notice that they can’t perform anymore.

I don’t know whether it was because we were all naked but for a thin layer of spandex, or because and we all had our ages marked on our calves, but the overwhelming attitude was humility.  Still, I was nervous.

We cued up for the swim, with the power blue group being the 4th of 7.  A small cannon signaled the start for each swim group.  Soon I was in the murky water, passing Matt.  I was confident that I’d beat Matt in the swim.  He’d been asking me for swim advice for months, and regularly expressed concern that he’d have to do resting strokes the entire length of the race.  I passed a lot of people, but was surprised at how difficult it was.  Unlike my swims in the pool, I couldn’t catch a quick breath every 25 meters, and there was no neat black line at the bottom of the lake to tell me what direction to swim.  I had to correct the angle of my swim several times, and I was tired, but I was certainly passing a lot of people, and didn’t see anyone passing me.  I ran out of the water with confidence.  After the race I learned that I’d completed the swim in 11:36, 29 out of 67 in my age group.  Not bad, but not as well as I thought at the time.

I toweled off, rinsed my grimy feet, and put on my bike gear.  I walked my bike to the start because I didn’t want to use too much energy getting there.  I crossed the red line and was on my way.  After the race I learned that I spent 4:38 in that transition, the 3rd slowest in my age group, and a full 2 minutes slower than I had planned. 

I was also confident about the ride.  I’d bought a new TREK bike (the same brand Lance rides) a few months ago and had been on a number of 25-mile group rides where I seemed to be among the faster riders.  Matt and I had ridden together before, and I had significantly out-paced him.  So it was quite a shock when most everyone seemed to pass me like I was standing still.  Men and women, young and old, they were almost all yelling “left!” as they flew by and I couldn’t figure out why (although I did smoke “13” on one hill and never saw her again).  The course was a lot hillier than I had anticipated, and my legs weren’t ready.  At around the mid-point of the ride my right calf –labeled “35” – seized up like an engine that had run out of oil.  I had planned for a lot of things, but not this type of equipment failure.   I had to dismount and lay down my bike to stretch.  A nearby crowd of observers murmured sympathetically while I tried to work it out.  After a couple of minutes I remounted and took off.  “35” throbbed, and I modified my cadence to avoid aggravating it. 

Ironically, I seemed to pick up speed after that.  The second half was mostly downhill, so I moved my hands to the lower bars and crouched into the wind.  As slow as it seemed I was going, I never saw Matt, and I was confident that he hadn’t passed me. I thought my three goals were within reach:  (1) Beat Matt, (2) Finish under 1:30, and (3) Don’t walk. 

But as soon I hit the bike finish, my heart sank.  It looked like almost every bike was in its rack.  It didn’t just seem like everyone had passed me, everyone had passed me.   It was an exaggerated perception, but not entirely off the mark.  Yet my ride time was 46:09, only 1:09 slower than I had planned.  It’s not that I was slow relative to my goals, even with the cramp.  The problem was that I was competing against a lot of people who had established more ambitious goals – and trained to reach them.

My next transition was better at 2:37, but still not good.  I ran out of the transition area with my quads burning, and “35” threatening to seize again.  I modified my stride to avoid another cramp.  I had always been most concerned about the run, and the threat of a failing leg muscle didn’t relieve my anxiety.

During the swim all you can see are bobbing swim caps, and on the bike people are moving too fast, but on the run everyone’s information is once again there to see.  Early in the run I passed “74” and wondered if he just started a lot earlier than I did, or if he was one of the many who had passed me on the bike.  I passed a lot of 40’s and 50’s.  A couple of 20’s passed me, but that was okay.  Then, I passed Matt going the other way.  How could he have gotten ahead of me?  I knew that I’d beaten him out of the water, and I’d never seen him pass me on the bike.  Turns out, he had passed me during my miserable first transition to the bike, and had never looked back.  Goal #1, R.I.P.

My consolation was in knowing that I had other goals.  Then “32” passed me.  I had decided that it was okay for anyone less than “30” passing me, but I wanted to beat anyone above that threshold, at least anyone who’d been slow enough to this point to still be in my general area.  It’s not just that it was “32”, but the actual designation was F(32).  “F” wasn’t marked on her, but I could tell because… well, because I can tell these things.  She didn’t just pass me, she was running like an antelope with extremely long legs.  Then, a few yards ahead of me, she stopped and started walking.  I passed her and gave myself a mental pat on the back.

I kept pace with most of the folks around me.  A few were passing me, but they were almost all “M”’s, and almost all sub “30’s”. I could live with that.  I was passing folks in their category too, which was even better.  Then, all of the sudden, F(32) loped by me again and I watched her disappear around the corner.  How could that happen?  She walked!  Walking is weakness!  I picked up my pace just a bit and caught up with her.  A few minutes later I heard her watch alarm go off and she stopped and walked again.  She wasn’t weak – that was her plan!  That’s not right, you can’t plan to walk! 

“35” throbbed in protest, but I pressed on. 

After her brief walk, F(32) passed me yet again.  I had decided that no one who was walking was allowed to beat me, so I ran up beside her as one of the famous Peachtree City golf carts drove by (Peachtree City is a planned development south of Atlanta that has a complex of cart paths, so the residents generally use golf carts instead of cars unless they are leaving the city) and F(32) asked me “think I can ask for a ride?”  Now F(32) was talking to me!  Didn’t she know that I was trying to beat her? I laughed, picked up my pace and didn’t see her again.  Amended Goal #4 – Beat F(32).  Accomplished.

As I rounded another corner I could hear cheering several hundred yards away.  I looked at my stopwatch – 1:30.  Goal #2 – gone.

Now goal #3 was in jeopardy.  I’d expended a lot of energy accomplishing amended goal #4 (which wasn’t yet in the bag), and now “35” was threatening to tighten up again.  The sound of live music and cheering in the distance propelled me.  The crowds around the path grew and I must have looked ready to quit because observers assured me that I was close to the finish.

I ran up one last hill, turned the corner and saw the finish banner.  I passed a walking F(23), who then sprinted ahead, elbowed in, and leaned across the finish line just ahead of me (we’ll see how she does when she’s an F(35)).  I ran for the full 3.1 miles in 28:40.  Goal #3 – accomplished.

Volunteers handed me a gold medal.  Matt and I congratulated one another for a good race.  I wanted to beat him, but I also wanted him to do well because he’s a good friend, and I was happy for him.  I finished in 1:33:18, 54th out of 67 in my age (35-39) and gender group.  After some brief refreshment Matt and I mounted our bikes for a quick ride back to the hotel.

In the shower I scrubbed to get the “35” off of my calf, but its faded imprint is still there.  I shouldn’t be so eager. The next time that rather fit woman marks my calf, she’ll have to write “36”.