a good day

Dear Lake Berryessa:

I should've known when I saw the rainbow at packet pick-up Friday that you'd be kind of a softie.

Sixty-degree water? Pshaw. Felt like a hot tub after training in the SF Bay. And you had better visibility than any other body of open water I've ever swum in (well, except for snorkeling in Hawaii, but that doesn't count). And your water actually tasted good, so swallowing a mouthful or two may have even been slightly refreshing.

So I swam you in 25:11, thus meeting my race goal. (Bonus bragging point: I consequently outswam my friend -- who is a guy and five years younger than I am -- by 35 seconds. Somewhere, someone is opening a really expensive bottle of bubbly and toasting me. That's right.) And I stayed with the pack -- granted, toward the back -- but still with the pack and not the kayakers. And I used my newly developed sighting skills to pass and weave around other swimmers and head in the right direction. And I backstroked only three very brief times, just to catch my breath, not because I was freaking out. And then I got my wetsuit off without falling over.

Take that, open water.

As for the rest of the tri ...

Bike: I did not get shit on by a bird, nor did I crash and get stuck in my pedals. However, I couldn't get warm. My fingers and toes were completely numb. Also, I made the mistake of wearing a new helmet for the first time, and it wasn't adjusted properly, so it kept slipping down my forehead at a bizarre angle and pretty much drove me apeshit (though I still managed to pass a lot of people on the hills, including someone in an aero helmet -- granted, it was a kid whose lip was bleeding and he was crying, but whatever -- I'm a horrible person and I'll take what I can get). My cycling time was 55:44 -- about a minute slower than MTS. Blah.

T2: Still wasn't warm. Couldn't get my helmet off because my fingers lacked any sort of feeling and I had no idea where the strap release button was. (Note to self: Race day really isn't the place to test new gear. All of those "experts" actually know what they're talking about.) I also had difficulty getting out of my bike shoes.

Run: So numb that all I could manage were stunted little steps. And even though I passed quite a few people (only two people passed me while I was out there), my run time suffered -- 29:40 compared to 27:34 at MTS.

But I finished in 1:56, which is a 12-minute PR.

And then I went to Sol Bar and ate this:

And then I spent the afternoon lying on the deck in the sunshine and reading library books. And then I got a pedicure. And then I got a massage. And then I made grilled cheese sandwiches with truffle butter.

Because that's how hedonistic newbie triathletes roll, right?