The Life and Writings of a Blind Women
2018 MTS Sprint Triathlon
After almost three years, I finally got to race in a triathlon!
Finding guides for triathlon is never easy. When I lived in Vermont, I never found a tri guide, though I had several excellent running guides. To race in a triathlon, I had to coordinate through Achilles International in New York City. They are a great organization when it comes to supporting disabled athletes, but they only race in a couple of triathlons a year, and it was always difficult to coordinate my schedule with theirs. When I moved to the central coast of California, I needed to find some guides to help me train for the 2017 NYC marathon. It turns out one of the women who volunteered to guide some of my long runs was also a triathlete. After we got to know each other, we decided to do a triathlon.
There are three characteristics I need in a tri guide: be a better athlete than me, be strong enough to handle a big girl on the back of a tandem bike, and be willing to give up their race to guide for me. Hillary easily qualified as a guide but had no guiding experience. We decided to train for the MTS race because it would keep us active over the winter months, and it’s a fundraiser for the Cal Poly Tri Team. I suggested the sprint distance so that we could get experience working our way around a race course together without the added stress of dealing with the longer Olympic distance. Racing is nothing like training because there are always problems to troubleshoot that never come up when training. This race was no exception, and the troubleshooting skills were needed as soon as we hit the water.
The MTS race course is only about twenty miles from my apartment. We rented a tandem from our local bike shop on Saturday, and headed out to the race early Sunday morning. When we arrived, it was a chilly thirty-two degrees. Given all the racing I’d done back in the New England and mid-Atlantic states, you’d think I was used to racing in the colder temperatures. But no, I’ve never started a triathlon when the air temperature was below fifty degrees. As we set up our gear in the transition area, my hands started to get cold. By the time I went to pull on my wet suit, my fingers were numb and felt like stubs. I couldn’t get a good grip on the rubber as I started to pull the suit up towards my hips. Hillary didn’t have as much trouble getting in her wet suit, but her hands and feet were just as cold as mine. Always the creative problem solver, she walked me over to an idling ambulance and told me to put my hands on the hood. The heat from the engine warmed us both. Slowly, I managed to get my wetsuit situated, and we made our way to the swim start.
Even worse than the air temperature was the water temperature, a frigid sixty-two degrees. My wet suit held up fine. It was my face that rebelled against the ice bath. When our wave was called into the water, I waded in, dropped my body below the surface, and dipped my face into the water. I came up saying to Hillary, “I don’t think I can swim with my face in this water.”
Our plan was to let the other women in our wave get a couple of yards ahead of us before we started the swim. There’s no need to get kicked in the face ten yards into the race. I swam five strokes, and my brain processed the fact that the water was freezing. My goggles filled with water, and I stopped swimming. This cycle repeated itself three or four more times, and I made it fifty yards out on the course. Hillary was great, she didn’t panic. She fixed my goggles, and somehow I put ten strokes together. But I was completely disorientated in the water and kept swimming off course. About two hundred yards into the swim I asked Hillary to swim in front of me so that I could tap her feet and know I was on course. Once we got that system working, I pretty much got into a better swimming rhythm, and somehow finished the swim without being last out of the water. As we walked up the ramp, I knew the hardest part of the race was over and was in high spirits.
Our transition to the bike was excellent although the time looks a bit slow because of the distance from the swim exit to the transition area. Once we were at the bike mount line, we easily got the tandem going with enough momentum to go straight up a pretty steep hill. It was probably the second steepest part of the course, and we easily handled it. Over the next six and a half miles, the course was mostly downhill, with a couple of short, intermittent rollers. I was happy I put on arm warmers. Even when we were in the shade, I don’t remember feeling cold. Our advantage on the tandem going downhill came in handy, and I think we passed about ten people. We also passed a couple of people with bike mechanical issues. I was grateful we took the time to test drive the tandem around the neighborhood before we loaded it on the truck on Saturday. At the bike turn around, we faced a six and a half mile uphill climb. The grade was manageable, at least until the very end. The last hill was the steepest, and Hillary couldn’t quite get the tandem in its lowest gear. We had to suck it up and muscle up the last three hundred yards in a gear that was harder than either of us would have liked. But we did it, and only got passed by three or four bikers on the entire uphill part of the bike course. Our time was about fifty-five minutes, a PR for me by more than two minutes!
Our transition from the bike to the run course was flawless. I’m pretty sure this was the first time I ever felt like I could actually run after the bike leg. My goal for the 5K was to run under thirty-six minutes, a good time for me, and one I’ve only achieved once before. The key for me is not to walk. The air temperature was perfect for the run. It had probably warmed up to fifty-five degrees by the time we got on the run course. There were also plenty of other runners around us, including the folks racing the Olympic distance. Usually, I’m one of the last people on the course, and the run can feel lonely. Hillary and I chatted and ran, chatted and ran. I only walked at the top of two baby hills for about 10-15 seconds each. As we approached the finish line, Hillary told me I was going to hit my goal time. Still feeling good, I ran hard to the finish, another first!
My total time was about two hours and four minutes, my fastest time for a full sprint distance race. Given the rough start in the water, it’s a nice accomplishment, especially since I had so many doubts about what I was doing when I was only one hundred yards into the race. Moments like that are why I race. As a blind person, I often find myself functioning under conditions that are tough to deal with. Racing in triathlon reminds me I have the strength and wherewithal to cope no matter what life throws at me. I usually walk away from every triathlon feeling like a stronger person, and this race was no different.
Not only was my race experience fulfilling, being outside in such beautiful surroundings was a bonus. The triathlon is held at a state park at Lake Lopez. The surrounding hills are beautiful, we rode next to an orange tree orchard and it smelled like freshly squeezed orange juice. And because of the recent rain, the meadows were all green. If you live within three or four hours, this is a great race to start your season with. As with all my triathlon stories, a thank you goes out to the folks who helped make this happen, Hillary, my stellar guide, and Geof, another running guide who came out to cheer us on. He also took all the wonderful pictures of Hillary and I on the race course.