Yes, it is Tuesday my sisters, but truth be told, I wrote my
blog this past Sunday. No I did not sit in a lovely café and channel the witty
over an Americano and a prayer. Instead I spent just under 8 hours racing in
the Subaru Vancouver Half Ironman.
Yes, my girlfriends, over the course of the day I dreamed up
the following report during the swim, bike and run.
You see my sisters- I had 7 plus hours to kill as I
physically pushed my limits to the limit. Yes it was a crazy race and no I was
not allowed to wear headphones. Not only was I expected to swim 1.9 km, cycle
90km and run 20km, I was expected to listen to my inner voice for the duration.
Allow me to share with you the process….
After a bit of a fitful sleep the night before I woke up at
4 am. Having gone to bed at 9pm on a Saturday nothing says neurotic like waking
an hour before your alarm just to mentally ponder the day ahead in an athletic
crazy voice. There I lay with my beloved sleeping soundly next to me as I
fretted….
What if I don’t make the cut-off for the swim?
What if they pull me off the bike course for taking too
long.
What if I panic in the water?
What if ?
I should preface this little display, my girlfriends, by
saying that this level of worry is very uncharacteristic of me. Ever a fan of
self knowledge I should say that I am more of a get it done first, think about
it after kind of girl. I rarely ponder implications that seem well beyond my
control. Between this level of neuroses and the 4 am middle of the night up
while everyone else was asleep- I found myself increasingly unsettled.
Sure enough, the hour passed and I met the dawn with a cup
of Tim Horton’s (no product endorsement- it was the only coffee shop open
24hours and I AM Canadian, afterall) and a half of a peanut butter sandwich.
I should say that the one great benefit about committing to
this extreme endurance type of exercise is the ability to eat whatever
carbohydrates you like for a good 48 hours. There is a freedom in that- that
somehow does make the pain to come more than reasonable.
I arrive at the triathlon at 5:30 in the morning. Having
dropped of my bike the night before I make my way into the transition area to
set up my little area that will act as my “locker-room” if you will for the
day. This is the place where you put your cycling and running gear in
preparation for each upcoming stage of triathlon and where you drop off
whatever gear you have just used.
And now for a word from our wardrobe sponsors.
Triathlon, like any good activity in life is all about the
outfits. I do believe what draws me to this sports is the fashion component. In
triathlon there are not one, but two costume changes. For someone like me- this
is almost as good as the guilt free carb loading I have engaged in the night
before.
Allow me to talk you through it….
You begin the day in wetsuit. You swim 1900 metres in the
ocean. You run up the beach for about 800 metres to transition. During this
time you are expected to have unzipped your own wetsuit and brought it down to
you waist. Once in the transition
area you pull the wet rubber off of your hips. Underneath is your
tri-suit. A tri-suit is combination swim/bike/run number that is much like a
spandex swimsuit meets cycling shorts. It is usually sleeveless and comes in
one or two piece variations. There is a just enough padding in the crotch area;
enough to protect the “good china” but not too much so as to make you feel like
you are running in a diaper.
You then put on your helmet and bike shoes. Slap on the
sunscreen and the body glide…. Place your “food for the road” in your pocket of
your trisuit and head off on the bike for the 90km ride ahead.
After returning from said ride- you come back into
transition and put your lovely bike back on its rack. You slip off your cycling
shoes, remove your helmet and put on your running shoes and a hat. After
reapplication of sunscreen and a stock up on a sugar source for the road ahead-
you head out onto the run course for the 20 km hopeful that the finish line
will not elude you.
As I write this, I am fully aware of the madness. As I lived
it, it became more moronic than anything I have ever done.
There I am at 6:15 warming up at Locarno beach. I am in the
water with about 100 other lunatics having a bit of a “practice swim” before
the starter gun goes off at 6:30. I make sure my goggles will not leak and out
of fear and need I pee in my wetsuit.
Oh, my sisters…. If you’ve never pee'd in a wetsuit- go out and do it immediately.
Seriously- you really must try it. It is nature’s “get out of jail free card” –
no one knows you are doing it, it feels great on the bladder and nothing warms
up a cold suit in a cold ocean like one’s own urine.
Fifteen minutes later I am on the beach at the start line.
The gun goes off and the serious lunatic among us race to the ocean. I hang
back, knowing that I am a slower swimmer, and not wanting to get punched in the
face in the ocean by a type A personality with something to prove. My goal is
to make it out of the water in 1 hour with a smile and all of my teeth.
Despite my warm up, the cold water still hits me. It takes
me a good 200 metres before I calm down and find my groove. We must swim two
rotations of a 950metre course. I swallow salt water liberally and veer off
course at times- due to the ocean current, but overall, my swim is pretty
invigorating.
Only once, about half way through the swim does the “bitch
bully” voice in my head ask why we are doing this. I answer simply…. “because
we can”.
After 57 minutes in the ocean I emerge from the deep and
begin the run up the beach. People are cheering as I pull off my bathing cap
and goggles and I wonder if I can hire some of these lovely spectators to come
to my office and offer the same level of encouragement to me throughout any
given day. I am convinced that if I had a cheering squad on, let’s say, a
Wednesday, my day would go much smoother.
The run up the beach puts me out of breath. In my minds eye
I think I must look like Halle Barrie in that James Bond movie when she’s
running out of the water. In reality, I suspect I am more of a comedy montage
from a Saturday Night Live sketch. Screw reality.
I get my wetsuit off of my torso but have to sit down in the
transition zone in front of my bike and wrestle with the rest o it to get my legs
free. Pulling a wetsuit off a wet body unassisted is like taking a bathing suit
off of a harbour seal, while the seal is still swimming. I have never seen a seal in a
bathing suit…. Having wrestled my own body out of a wetsuit during a race… I
understand why. A wet body is just a bitch to undress.
Now breathing heavily I put on my bike helmet and dry my
feet. I slip on my socks and my bike shoes and pack my pockets with energy bars
and sugar laden sports gels for the ride ahead. I grab my bike and run to the MOUNT
line. I get on my bike and begin.
I have allowed myself 4 hours for this 90km bike ride. This
is a long time, but I am built for comfort and not for speed. The course if 4
loops around the University of British Columbia which included a motherfucker
of a hill just to keep one humble.
I ride in silence. There is no music in my ears and I find
my rhythm. My first lap of the course leaves me feeling strong and fabulous. I
finish 23km in 45 minutes and I feel great. I have been passed by more riders
than I can care to count. I am slower than the norm but I am loving this.
Riders pass me up the hill and down the hill. They are all equally polite to
tell me they are coming and some even offer encouragement as they go. Every few
minutes a very fit man or woman with 2% body fat on an $8000 triathlon bike
will whiz by at 45 km an hour and shout “looking good”. I offer an “awe shuck,
thanks” response and keep pedaling.
I look forward to the time when I will whiz passed someone
and yell “looking good” to THEM. This does not happen.
In the three hours and forty five minutes that it takes me
to complete my bike course, I pass no-one. Instead I resign myself to the
reality that as others pass me and yell their encouragement to me I will respond
with “you look good too”. It works like a charm.
There I am the last one on the bike course…. The ambassador
of it all. I feel like a queen holding court at bike camp. They have all seen
me come and I have seen them all go. On my last loop around the course, I do
the absolute unthinkable….. I pee on my bike.
I should say that I really love my racing bike. She is a
Cervelo S5 (yeh, I name dropped) and she is perfect. But I read somewhere that
most long distance triathletes have peed on their bikes as do athletes in the Tour
du France.
In my defense, I had to go and I was just really happy that
this was a good sign that I was not dehydrated. And so in the spirit of the
great sportspeople before me I road down the UBC hill for the last time and let
my bladder fly.
At 4:55 on the race clock I make my way back into
transition. I rack my bike full in the knowledge that my ass is completely
numb. I spent the last 90 minutes swearing in my head. I am covered in sweat
and salt and yes, urine.
I slip off my bike shoes and put on my running shoes. I
reload my energy gels and put on more sunscreen. I briefly think of my
dermatologist and know that regardless of how I finish- he would indeed be
proud. I place a large running visor on my head, my race number on my waist and
off I go…. To run just short of a half marathon. No problem.
Truth be told the first 10km were indeed not much of a
problem. That is until I hit the 11km mark and the bitch bully in my head
reappeared encouraging me to either give up or cheat. I am NOT a cheater. I am
honest to a fault, but I must say that 102km into a 111.9km race and I was
seriously wondering about where I could cut corners.
I soldiered on hushing the voice in my head. I tried to
focus on the beautiful day. There I was running along the beach, doing the
craziest most intense activity I had ever done. Was this not amazing?
Not so much. My fatigue was at an all time high and I am
someone who had been on call for decades. I was hungry beyond belief and my
body smelled like salt and vinegar. This was not pretty.
But slowly 8 km to go became 4km and then 2. I was the last
runner on the course and I had 2km to go. The race clock said 7:30. They close
the course at 8 hours. I had half an hour to complete the last 2 km and I knew,
even if I walked I would make it. There was no way in hell that I was walking
across that finish line. I would run regardless of the fact that my legs had stroked out three kilometres ago.
You see in long distance triathlon- they cheer almost as
loud for the last person on the course as they do for the first person off it.
Cross the finish line first and yes, you are a winner who has achieved a
triumph of serious physical and mental means. Cross the finish line last and
you are someone who has achieved a triumph of the spirit.
And sure enough I approached the finish and heard the
announcer,
“Gather round ladies and gentleman and welcome her home. Our
last athlete on the course, Dr. Ali Zentner. Welcome to the finish line of the
Subaru Half Marathon. You look great Ali!”
And there it was. And so it is.
I had a whole study laid out for you my sisters about the
risks and benefits of endurance triathlon that I was going to insert here.
But as I write
these words, the tears fill my eyes and I remember that sometimes in life as in
medicine the spirit is more powerful the science of it all. Sometimes there is
no need for a full on fancy study to push our knowledge further. In those
moments, thoughts and methods and disciplines fall away and all we are left
with is the art of it all.
The art of a crazy lady with something to prove to noone but
herself, racing towards a proverbial finish line on a perfect Sunday afternoon.