BWAAAAAAAAH!
The air horn sounded sending my heart out of my nose and making my pooper pucker like someone put Icy Hot in my drawers. My heat was underway. I'm not sure how many people were actually in my wave but it felt like I was one out of a thousand lemmings running in slow motion to our inglorious doom. "Crap, crap, crap,
craaaaaaaaap." There was no backing out now even if my life depended on
it. I was in the middle of the pack being pushed toward the frigid water by a
bunch of foolhardy triathlon nerds who were chomping at the bit to get
their race on. I was like that sorry Roman soldier with his
fellow soldier's spear in his back as they charged forward into battle.
It was either go forward and fight to live or die turning around to
flee.
Not only would I have been trampled had I turned around to back out, but the wife's heat was right behind us. It would be better to drown in the frigid duck-water lake than to endure the life-long shaming that would have taken place had I backed out. (Little did I know the same thing was going through the wife's head as she watched us plunge into the frosty fluid). "Here goes nothing." Summing up my last bit of false bravado, I gave myself a mental kick in the ass as I let myself fall face first into the water. SONOFA!!!
(Insert string of profanities). Razors sliced my face and anywhere else
not covered by my wetsuit. "Turtle syndrome" was taken to an entirely
new level. Oxygen evaporated from my lungs as they were instead filled with wet
cement. My frigid watery death was all but a mere formality now. Crap, I didn't even have my will done!
"Hold on, you can't drown in a wetsuit, you can't drown in a wetsuit" I assured myself. "Just stroke and breath, stroke and breath." "You're as buoyant as a beer can
floating down a river." "Wait, even they eventually sink...." Smack,
choke, gasp, flail, snot bubbles, panic. Hand on my leg, heel to my forehead, goggles cockeyed on my face (At least I put my swim cap over the straps like a seasoned pro so I didn't lose them - This was one thing I read online that was right!) Lake water filled my eyes and mouth, somehow at the same time. This
was the single worst idea of my life. I was going to die like Leonardo
DiCaprio's character in the Titanic. I could hear that terrible
soundtrack whining in my head as I slipped to my watery grave. Ole Jack made drowning in freezing water look so
peaceful but I felt like a one-winged penguin being chased by a great
white shark. "This is not peaceful, this sucks!"
"Okay, okay, okay, tread water and gather yourself man!" "Hey, a kayak is right there, go ahead and grab it ... stop it, don't be that guy, don't eat the apple!" "Shore is pretty much just as far away now as the next buoy, keep swimming." "It's too cold, you can't breath, this is just stupid, it can't be good for you, go ahead and just call it a day. Don't leave your son fatherless." "Can't quit, what does that teach the son? Plus, the wife will never let you live it down, you're better off drowning." "Ah look, there's a bunch of people hanging onto the buoy like seals on the one iceberg that is still afloat in the middle of the Arctic Ocean." "Haha, you guys are cheating, I'm still swimming. I am awesomer than all ya'll!" My self-talk was like an inebriated lunatic that didn't take his medication.
"Relax, breast stroke, breath; breast stroke, breath; stroke a breast,
breath." Hehe I said "stroke a breast." Apparently I was going
delirious. BWAAAAAAAAHHHHHH. The women's Olympic distance heat was being sent off behind us. "Get moving fool before you get passed by a bunch of chicks." "Regular stroke, breath; regular stroke, breath." "Don't
mind that hand on your ass and foot about to kick you in the face."
"Follow the bubbles, bump, roll, relax, breath." I was finding a rythm. "We got this."
"Relax, pull, breath, sight; relax, pull, breath, sight. I was moving right along now. Ironman Kona here I come! Relax pull, breath, sight; relax, pull ...
THUNK! What the hell?! The top of my melon ran smack into something. Choking on dirty ice water I popped straight up to see what had fallen out of the sky to smack me in the head. A damn kayak! "Did I go that far off course?" There was no way, the one thing I was doing right was sighting and following the buoys. Nope, didn't go off course. A bright-eyed, bright-shirt sporting, smiling volunteer was sitting in her kayak smack dab in the middle of the swim course watching us all go on our merry way. "You alright?" She asked. "No, can't you see I'm trying to drown myself here and you aren't making things any easier" I replied in my head. "Ugh" was all I could really muster to groan in response.
"Fruitin, fartin, fricken, frackin, biscuit baking, banana boater!" As if the swim wasn't hard enough already they had to throw obstacles in the middle of it. "Did I look that bad that someone paddled over to get me?" I wondered. "Oh well." "Lord I got to keep on moooooveeeeen..." Now Bob Marley popped into my head as I blissfully imagined pulling the bright-eyed, bright-shirt sporting, smiling, apparently
warm kayaking volunteer out of her kayak and paddling myself to safety. Undeterred, I struggled to find my "rhythm" again. "There it is, here we go, but what's that?" The water behind me started churning. It's weird how you can hear and feel something approaching you from behind even in murky water. I was like a lure about to be devoured by a famished fish.
A few seconds went by and something was grabbing my feet, another thing pushed my head down, a dark object went darting by me, bubbles everywhere. What the ...? Is that a freaking porpoise (no porpoises don't hang out in Iowa lakes)? Is that a swim cap? Is that an arm? It's a stinking person. Damn it! The girls were passing me now. They had to be ex-Olympian swimmers right? One by one, they glided right by me, each one taking my masculinity down another notch. First man-nerds now women! As if about drowning wasn't bad enough. Their wake went straight into my gaping mouth as I attempted to breath. Hack, spit, choke, panic, another round of breast stroke. "I guess I should be swimming my swim workouts with the breast stroke" I thought. "You can't come out of this looking good so just survive man, just survive. Kona will have to wait."
What felt like an eternity went by as I scratched and clawed my way through the Arctic water, slowly working my way to the safety of the blow-up arch and boat ramp marking the end to this torturous task. My lungs were on fire, which was weird with as much water as I swallowed, and my arms felt like they were going to fall off. I couldn't feel my face, feet or fingers. Numb, humbled but happy to be alive, my hand felt the scratch of the boat ramp concrete ridges. Twelve and a half minutes had felt like hours but now it was all but a distant nightmare
A relief unlike I had ever felt before swept over me as my feet came up under me and I grasped that glorious volunteer's hand to help me out of the water. "LAND FREAKING HO!" I wanted to bear hug the volunteer and bend down and kiss the earth that had saved me from my watery grave but alas, aint nobody got time for that, I was racing ... again. I didn't care about the needles penetrating my feet with every step, I had survived. I even snuck a peak back and saw to my surprise that there were still people in the water. I wasn't last!
A little light-headed, I staggered up the ramp to the cheers of the wonderful people that had come to see the triathlon phenomenon that was me. It sounded like I had just scored the winning touchdown at the Super Bowl, in my head anyway. "Short, choppy steps" I coached myself. "Get your heart rate down, breath man, breath." I had survived! I had made it through the part that terrified me the most. A feeling of glorious accomplishment swept over me as I shuffled up the 15% grade hill to transition (it wasn't that steep, just taking some artistic liberties here). I didn't care, I survived. My false bravado and overconfidence began creeping back in with every step away from the water. I was a lock to finish my first triathlon ... Or was I?
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