Let's Tri it!

Please Lord just don't let me come in last place.

I mean I know I will finish.  Not much in life I have not been fortunate enough to accomplish or experience once I put my thick headed Taurus and Calabrese head to it.  I'll drag my sorry ass with my head cracked open across a finish line if I have to.  But Speed.....that's another thing.  I always have said that this body was meant to and can endure anything.  Just don't exect it to do it in 2 seconds flat.  So please Lord just don't let me come in last place of the 1,500 or so athletes in the Boulder Sprint Tri was my thought when I woke up today.

After a few moments it turned to...."Come on Marty....last place??  You know that is not going to happen to you.  There is going to be a 78 year old lady out in the race that you surely can beat.  There are going to be other poor fools like yourself doing a Tri for their first time.  This will be their Everest.  All that they dreamed of.  There will be folks that are 200lbs heavier than you just trying to catch their breath.  Surely you can cross the finish line before people in both of those catagories.  My one sentance prayer switch to...

Please Lord don't let me be last in my age group. (45-49)

This seems a little bit more reality based then just finishing.  Though it could be a difficult one.    I am racing in Boulder.  The land of unnatural human beings.  The place where ladies give birth to their children right in a pool so that the children can start doing laps once the cord it cut.  I'm some smoe from Brooklyn New York who at 45 decided I'm gonna sign up for an Ironman.  I haven't really ran since May 27th.  Thursday was the first time I swam in over three weeks.  I'm still a bit tired from some of the drugs I have been and still are on since my guest appearance as "Severe Allergic Reaction Hive Man!"   Maybe I can trip some guy in the transition area or solicit the help of some friends (Colin) coming to cheer me on to release the air in a few bike tires of people in my age group while we are out on the swim.  Yeah, that could do it.

Dude, it is just a sprint distance.....a 1/2 a mile swim, a 17.2 mile bike ride followed by a 5k.  That is a piece of cake.  Again stop concerning yourself about speed.  But that damn word sprint rings so loud in the back of my head.  In adventure racing, I hated the 12 hour sprint races and longed for the 5 day race courses.  The 12 hour sprint where people were flying through the course while I plodded along.  But give me a multi day, allow me to run in my Zen Zone and this tortoise would pass many of the hares.  I keep on plodding along, singing and laughing the whole way through.

Then the words of my coach (yes, I even have a coach) Eric came through to me.

We have to get the mind frame of performing. Not "working out"

Race on sunday.  It has to be a MAXIMAL EFFORT!

He's right.  I need to get out of my little Zen zone and push myself.  You've entrusted yourself to your coach, allow him to do his job and attempt to be coached.  You are not going to come in last place.  You are not going to be last in your age group.  And you know that asking the Lord for silly things like this  doesn't mean anything and cheapens the conversations that you have with him.  He will give you the strength to do anything you want to do but You Marty still have to do it.  So now I have set my goal as far as a race goes.  Those items that I am going to work on are:  Not to be distracted.  Focusing on the task at hand.  Watching other people and what they do is not going to help you get out of the transition area faster.  It is not going to help you swim or bike or run faster.  This is a training race.  Be calm, be focused be aware of myself in my environment and learn from doing.  Learn what it is going to be like to swim in the open water with 1,5000 other racers.  Experience what it will be like to get on that tri bike with people all around you and going up to 30+ miles an hour.  Be focus on racing and learning.  This is not my Everest, this is merely a highway overpass I need to take to get to Cozumel.  So this afternoon, I will ride the bike section of the course and learn about it.  I will jog the area in which I will run on Sunday. I will familiarize myself with as much of this course as I can.  Then tomorrow after registration, I will go out in the water and swim in my wet suit for the first time and see what that is like.  I will understand the cold water and feel what it is like not to swim in lanes.  I will walk the transition areas and learn where I need to run and where I will be heading out for the bike.  I will become more one with the course so that I can race my race and not race my competitors nor the course.  And when the race for me has ended on Sunday and as I "Fly to the finish" of my first Tri, I hope to be tired and happy and to have learned and not to have just plodded through the course but to have actually raced it and then of course I will be looking for a beer to celebrate.

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OK secret hope.......My Please Lord don't let me be last in my age group. (45-49) has turned to ..........Wouldn't it be cool if this Sunday at the Boulder Sprint Tri, my first Triathlon, I was to come in the middle of my sex and age groups against predominately Boulderites.  Well, see.  Shhhhhh don't tell anyone.