I completed the tri the Hook triathlon on Saturday, and after a very shaky start, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. My day did not start off on a positive note. After a unsettled night's sleep during which I dreamed of stormy seas and forgotten wetsuits, I drank three cups of coffee and promptly vomited them up again. I have never felt uncontrollably nervous before a race, but this time the nerves kept mounting. I arrived at the parking area and realised that everyone I saw was huge, male, and looked like the Brownlee brothers. I couldn't see any fellow female competitors.
I found the registration desk and handed over what I thought was the print-out confirmation of the mandatory one-day triathlon license. The girl behind the desk looked it, then looked at me. Her strangely blank expression was incomprehensible to me until I glanced at it and realised I had mistakenly grabbed a cervical screening reminder letter from my bag and placed it in front of her. My nerves getting the better of me, I burst out laughing like a lunatic. She did not join in.
I finally managed to escape with my race numbers and safety pins, leaving my dignity in tatters behind me, and cowered in the car willing myself not to drive home and scuttle into bed. It was raining, with strong winds, and everyone around me looked calm and ultra-prepared, with their transition kit neatly packed in backpacks.
I realised I had a choice: I could either submit to the nerves, go home, and fail, or I could fake confidence until I actually felt it. I chose the latter, and got out of the car into the lashing rain.
I put on my wetsuit and, making a amateur bodge of packing my kit into something manageable, cycled slowly to the transition area. I arranged my kit in order of the three disciplines, and slowly, a perfect calm fell over me. I started chatting to one of my neighbours (male, but not huge and not an Olympic athlete). Everyone suddenly seemed friendly and approachable. I no longer felt like a child on her first day of big school.
There's not much more to add, really: I swam well, the cycle was tough but I talked to myself the whole way round (earning some sideways looks from fellow competitors). The run was torture - 5km of shaky jelly legs, but I had overtaken a good few people on the cycle and run and was now vaguely aware that I had a big silly grin on my face.
I finished 170 out of 189 competitors, or 33 out of 41 women. It was the first race I'd actually felt prouder about being at the start line than the finish line.
So that's almost certainly my only triathlon this year; I wasn't organised enough to enter more. I didn't do the half marathon the following day. I'm slowly learning to make sensible, adult decisions, it seems.
I found the registration desk and handed over what I thought was the print-out confirmation of the mandatory one-day triathlon license. The girl behind the desk looked it, then looked at me. Her strangely blank expression was incomprehensible to me until I glanced at it and realised I had mistakenly grabbed a cervical screening reminder letter from my bag and placed it in front of her. My nerves getting the better of me, I burst out laughing like a lunatic. She did not join in.
I finally managed to escape with my race numbers and safety pins, leaving my dignity in tatters behind me, and cowered in the car willing myself not to drive home and scuttle into bed. It was raining, with strong winds, and everyone around me looked calm and ultra-prepared, with their transition kit neatly packed in backpacks.
I realised I had a choice: I could either submit to the nerves, go home, and fail, or I could fake confidence until I actually felt it. I chose the latter, and got out of the car into the lashing rain.
I put on my wetsuit and, making a amateur bodge of packing my kit into something manageable, cycled slowly to the transition area. I arranged my kit in order of the three disciplines, and slowly, a perfect calm fell over me. I started chatting to one of my neighbours (male, but not huge and not an Olympic athlete). Everyone suddenly seemed friendly and approachable. I no longer felt like a child on her first day of big school.
There's not much more to add, really: I swam well, the cycle was tough but I talked to myself the whole way round (earning some sideways looks from fellow competitors). The run was torture - 5km of shaky jelly legs, but I had overtaken a good few people on the cycle and run and was now vaguely aware that I had a big silly grin on my face.
I finished 170 out of 189 competitors, or 33 out of 41 women. It was the first race I'd actually felt prouder about being at the start line than the finish line.
So that's almost certainly my only triathlon this year; I wasn't organised enough to enter more. I didn't do the half marathon the following day. I'm slowly learning to make sensible, adult decisions, it seems.
Comments
Post a Comment