Honey, Trouble and Kitty

Y’all can call me Honey.

That’s right, that sticky, gooey, sweet mess of a disaster that was discovered at 2AM upon arrival at the hotel. My Fage yoghurt/honey had punctured in my suitcase and spent the last 10 hours oozing through little holes in the plastic bag in which they were supposed to be contained. Ahhh man! Fage is my miracle workout food. Won’t race without it. With no Trader Joe’s in this side of the state, I was required to bring my own. And I brought it. All over my helmet, toiletries, clothes and shoes. I spent the next hour washing and cleaning honey from places honey doesn’t need to belong. Thursday, 3AM, lights out, finally.

Checking in for my return Southwest flight back to San Diego, the TSA agent asks me as he’s manually screening my disk wheel for explosives.
TSA: “What is it? A bike tye-rr?”
Me: “A special bike wheel for racing. I don’t trust the baggage monkeys with it.”
TSA: “Where it at?”
Me: “Tuscaloosa”
TSA: “What’d ya think of da Black Warrior River?”
Me: “Uh…. Before or after my 43 minutes of hell?”

Well, in all honesty, I don’t think BWR was going to be highlight of the day, before or after. My introduction to the river that flows through Tuscaloosa, AL (home of the Crimson Tide, University of Alabama) was, “its 85 degrees and home of water moccasins.” Sa-weet! Let’s jump in and go for a swim, why don’t we. As it turns out neither the temperature nor the snakes were really the problem. Before I get to the problem, let’s talk Crimson Tide.

If you asked me on Wednesday what I thought you meant when a woman said “crimson tide” I would’ve responded with “oh, sorry, you too??” Ask me on Thursday, I’d tell you it was a charming town of students wearing burgundy Nike running shorts. Yup, 8 out of 9 students in Tuscaloosa, AL wear Nike shorts. You see one group of girls wearing them. Then another group. And another. Soon you realize that they’re all wearing them. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Fascinating. Not that it really matters. I digress.

En route to Tuscaloosa I got the chance to witness two lighting storms that could probably power a small nation (one viewed from the plane and one from the ground), two days of rain, with said 2nd lightning storm letting loose a downpour of nearly 2 inches in less than 60 minutes. For a good ‘ol California girl, that was quite an experience. When we get rain, it lasts for days, not minutes, and we get a fraction of an inch, not several inches. Hell, they have grass in Alabama in the summer! This rain also caused a little flooding upstream. So Joe Waterboy opened the flood gates at the base of the Black Warrior River so the poor folk upstream could stop treading water. That’s fine and dandy…until you have to swim in it! I now know what my very own endless pool feels like. Just kinda blows when you’re actually supposed to be racing. You see, when racing, the intent is not to actually swim backwards.

Learn something new every day. I learned that on a day like August 22, 2009, not being a strong swimmer was going to cost dearly. I met up with fellow San Diegans Neily “Trouble” Mathias, Marisa “Kitty” Rastetter, Diana Black and Lesley Tomaich who were racing as well. I love these girls. They make a bad day fun. Oh boy did we have fun after the misery was over. More about that later. I am the weakest swimmer of the bunch and it was advertised like a neon billboard in the middle of an ocean. Instead of closing the flood gates to weaken the otherwise brisk current (as we were initially told would happen), the gates were opened to accommodate upstream flooding causing the current to strengthen. 1000 meters of our 1500 course was upstream. The top swimmers will usually swim a 1500 course in anywhere from 16-20 minutes. After the first wave went off and 16 minutes into the swim the leaders were only half way, we knew it was going to be a long day in the water. For top swimmers, times were 20-40% slower that normal. For average swimmers (me), it was more like 50-65% slower. For weak swimmers, well, some didn’t finish the swim.

I try to encourage new triathletes that the swim isn’t the hardest part of a race. The run is always the hardest because it’s last and you’re tired. The swim is usually the scariest, but not hardest. This day, it was the hardest. On top of a rip roaring current, it was muddy. So muddy in fact, you couldn’t see your hand enter the water right in front of your face. This meant that whoever was swimming up from behind you (later waves of swimmers) couldn’t see you, so they just swam over you. I have never been so beat up and repeatedly dunked (as their hand enters the water on your back and pushes you under) in a race, ever. And I let it get to my head. I wanted to cry. I wanted out. I’d already been in the water well beyond my normal 26 minute swim time and I was over it. I don’t get frustrated to the point of breaking too often, but this was one of those moments. I was not surprised to see my watch ticking beyond 44 minutes when I got in to T1. Frustration turned to anger. I was pissed. Everyone in T1 was pissed. You could see the frustration in the eyes of many. “What the F%@&!!??!?” were words uttered by more than a few. On a positive note, I did rescue someone timing chip while swimming. On one of my many dunkings, happen to swim into a chip that was floating, stuffed it in my swim skin and threw it at the volunteer at T1, "This ain't mine". You can see me holding the extra chip in my delirium on the way up to T1.

Once out on the bike, it occurred to me just how disastrous my swim had been. I was going to be in damage control mode. Marisa, Neily & Lesley were all out on the bike already. Their waves started upwards of 6-12 minutes behind me. I don’t expect to beat any of those women as they are all stellar athletes, but I do use them to gauge my performance. Marisa has rocked launchers attached to her quads and she was outta there & gone. I passed Neily & Lesley in the first half of the first bike lap. I would expect to see both those ladies run me down. They had a lot of time on me and I had to make up some time. Not to mention, I had all my pent up frustration to burn. So I hit it hard. The smooth, rolling course would lend itself to fast splits, but when I saw the 31/32 minute split for the first lap (20K) I knew I was either on fire, ortemporary numb & going to blow up on the run. I steadied the pace and finished in 1:06 (my computer registered 1:05:30). A new PR for a 40K triathlon course.

I had no clue what would happen on the run. My left foot has been troubling me for the last few weeks. Advil & ice was all therapy I’d had time for with my demanding work travel schedule. Talking with friends and Doc John via the phone, we concluded it’s most likely plantiar faciatis. Never had it before. Never care to have it again. Hurts like hell for the first 5 or 6 minutes of a run, then settles to a dull ache or goes away altogether. I expected the first 5 minutes of the run I may be limping. Hopefully I’d run out of it. I felt like typical poo for the first half of the run. The course was such that the 3 hills were all in the first half of the course. The last half was flat. The first hill, Library Hill, was a quarter mile of 8-10% grade out & back. Ouch. I saw Les & Neils on the way down. Neils & I gave each other a hi-5 which was all I needed to lift the spirits. My foot hurt. “Good, run till something else hurts more than your foot” I told myself. Second hill, mantra in rhythm to running steps, “I like this, I enjoy this, I like this.” Third hill, “you paid for this, you paid A LOT for this.” I laughed at myself. Silly Raja. Who’s the nutbag now? By the time I got down to the flat I was back to, “run till something hurts more than your foot.” Or until your legs turn to lead bricks.

I finished with something far from a PR for the Olympic distance. I finished with an understanding that sometimes you get lucky (like the swim being cancelled at Newport), and sometimes you get unlucky. As unhappy as I was about this swim, for once, the swimmers had a race they could win on their swim alone. That doesn’t happen often, so I just have to chalk it up to experience. I did however PR on the bike split as well as my 10K run time of 45 min n’change. I wanted to break 45, but having the foot to deal with, I thought I wasn’t going to get close. I came closer than expected. I also learned, that while I placed 20th in my age group (top 25 get chance for Worlds), I ended up being ranked 27th for World’s due to age ups from the 25-29 age group. I was bumped from my chance to go to Budapest in 2010. Can’t tell you how upsetting that was. Everyone who could swim in my group qualified. Marisa placed 7th, Neily 9th, Lesley 14th in their age groups and only got jostled a few spots from age-ups. I did not. I felt like a rug had been ripped from my feet. I got dealt a painful hand.

Then Craig Zelent from San Diego said something supportive to me and I can’t even tell you what it was, but it triggered a light in my dismal tunnel of failure. I’m here because I want to be. I’m bummed because I am competitive and I want to prove to myself that I am good enough to qualify. I am only here because 10 years ago I broke my back and couldn’t walk and made the decision at that point to try a triathlon. It seemed impossible at the time. But I was one of the few who overcame a challenge, and just to be here is good enough. There will always be girls better than me. I thank Marisa, Neils, Les & Diana for being so incredibly supportive and supplying never-ending streams of goodwill and fun.

For that night, after the award ceremony, we went out dancing and show’d them good’ol Crim’sen Al’bama boys how the girls from California can rip up a dance floor.

Top Ten Memorable Moments at USAT Nationals 2009

10. Crossing the finish line at a National Championship event. You don’t ever forget. Even more so, the feeling of rocking it on the bike.
9. The largest section of Grits I’ve ever seen. Not even sure what grits are…
8. Meeting new friends with names like “Spider”
7. Viewing a strobe light of a lightning storm from the plane. Can’t tell you how delighted I was to not be under that storm. Yikes! Enough energy to power a small continent.
6. Gino, my physical therapist commenting on the rather unsightly large bruise acquired during my swim battle.
5. Wanting to cry with my goggles on… while swimming backward.
4. The adventure at the market: “Butt Rub Makes Everything Better”
3. Showing them ‘Bama boys how the California girls like to have a good time
2. The blow to the side at award when I didn’t qualify for Worlds due to my swim time and the realization that if I want to do better, I’m going to have to spend a lot of time doing what I don’t enjoy most… swimming
1. Laughing till my stomach hurt, enjoying wine & dessert with friends post race and hanging out with a bunch of rad, wicked cool chicks nicked-named "Trouble" and "Kitty" who made everything better.