Tri Again

In 2018 and 2019, I participated in the South Davis Recreation Center's Splash 'n' Sprint Triathlon, which consists of a 350-yard swim, a twelve-mile bike ride, and a three-mile run.

This year, I took swimming lessons in January and February, so I decided to participate in the triathlon again. 

Since this was my third time doing it, I knew what to expect. I showed up at the rec center on Saturday morning, and they wrote my number, 191, on my arm and my leg. When they wrote on my arm, one of the volunteers asked, "Are you Bigfoot?" 

Since I took swimming lessons recently, I was hoping the swimming would go better than it did in past years. Unfortunately, I psyched myself out. My plan was to alternate laps of freestyle and backstroke (which I have been doing in practice). As I've been swimming over the last few months, I've found that I often have an existential crisis when I'm doing freestyle. And a race is no time for an existential crisis. After I finished two laps, I didn't think I could keep doing freestyle. I ended up doing a lot of breaststroke, which is not my best stroke, because it's easier (and slower). And also, my goggles were unusually foggy. So swimming didn't go that well for me, and I think I did worse than I did in previous races. I might have set unrealistic expectations for myself. Oh well, there's always next year.

Next was the biking. I knew this wouldn't go that well. I only have a mountain bike, even though I don't mountain bike, so I got passed a lot. But I did pass a few people, surprisingly. I'm sure I would have done better with a road bike. Sometimes I wonder if I should invest in a road bike. But the problem is I just don't like biking that much. Living on a hill means that biking is hard, either because I have to bike uphill or I have to load the bike into my car. And I think running is better exercise than biking, so if I'm going to spend an hour or two exercising, I would rather burn more calories.

But then the running portion was my best. I passed many people, and I ended up in the top fifteen percent of the running portion. This was one of my fastest 5ks, so at least I have that going for me.

I like to think that I didn't have enough training opportunities, between a late winter, two jobs, therapy sessions, and helping out with Wayfare magazine. But I really am disappointed in my swim time, especially since I literally just had lessons, and my swim instructor told me I could join the recreational swim team. I like to think I'm athletic, but when I'm among actual athletes, I realize I'm not.