Like Riding a Bike, Part II

These were my thoughts going into my first triathlon:

• Hahahaha what am I doing with my life
• Whoever thought of this sport was clearly a cyclist
• I'm literally the slowest cyclist ever and I'm going to get passed by everyone
• I am going to be the only person with a hybrid
• I might crash my bike
• Whatever, I have nothing to lose

I had to show up the day before the triathlon to rack my bike and pick up my bib. I didn't want to, because typically I hate being around people talking about racing the day before I race. It's like all of those mid-40s women in Boston Marathon jackets at every marathon ever talking about PR this and BQ that and blah blah blah. I just want to sit in my living room and eat sweet potatoes and watch Portlandia. 

Actually, though, it was kind of nice, because the race was super beginner-friendly. The first woman I ran into was also a first-time triathlete. She had a fancy road bike. She was nervous about the swim. 

I looked around when I racked my bike and I noticed that plenty of people had hybrids. I mean, most people had road bikes or tri bikes, but there were a bunch of beginners with hybrids. It made me feel less embarrassed about my bike. 

My hybrid next to some bikes that actually make sense for racing

The bibs we got said "I tri for _______." I filled in the blank when I got home. "I tri for oh god, who knows; what the hell am I doing?"

I laughed at myself a little and put the whole thing into perspective: I couldn't even ride a bicycle a year ago. Now I'm racing 20K. Nothing else matters. Also, this is supposed to be fun. So have fun, god damn it. 

I woke up at 4:30 AM and left for the race early. This turned out to be a good call, since there was a line for parking, and then a line for someone to write all over you with a black permanent marker, and then another line to get into the transition, which closed at 6:30. I made it at 6:15. 

I stripped down to my tiny little bathing suit and left my stuff neatly arranged in the transition and then left. Then I realized I was freezing and everyone else had clothes on or a tri suit or wetsuit so I went back in and got warm-up clothes. 

The swim waves were in reverse order of age, which kind of sucked because it meant I'd have no idea where I was in the overall race, but at the same time it meant I could count "kills" Ragnar-style on the run. I warmed up for my wave and felt focused and ready to go. I lined up in front of the swim wave, which was a good call. 

Gun and then chaos. Everything I knew about swimming technique went out the window when I realized I couldn't see anything in the murky lake water with my Women's Vanquisher 2s. Do they make clear goggles for open water swimming? Is that a thing? 

I just kind of swam at a moderate pace trying not to go drastically off-course. The lady next to me kept alternating between fast freestyle and slow breaststroke. She kicked me in the face a few times. I kind of liked it. It reminded me of warm-ups before meets when I was younger, when we had 20+ people in a 25 yard lane.  

I caught up with the wave in front of me. Before I knew it, I was out of the water. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to jog the transition or if there were rules about not running or something weird, so I awkwardly shuffled into the transition area. 

What am I supposed to be doing?

I put on some clothes and socks and shoes and took my bike off the rack. Even though I knew I was still racing, I felt no real sense of urgency. Probably because I was terrified of the whole bike thing.

I ran my bike over to the bike start and took off. I remembered how to ride a bike, so that was good. My muscles burned pretty much immediately as I tried to ride hard. I'd never actually tried that before. I was pretty convinced it was going to get worse and worse as the ride went on, but in actuality, it just kind of stayed the same, and I just kept grinding. 

I passed a lot of people. I honestly didn't expect to pass anyone. They were from the waves ahead of me, but still. There were slower cyclists!

There was one sharp turn into a steep uphill. I tried to shift gears. I'd waited too long. My feet flew off the pedals. There was someone immediately in front of me and someone immediately behind me. I veered off to the side and tried to find my pedals again and not fall over. The lady behind me said "on your left!" and I was like "oh god, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" and she almost collided with me and had to stop. I turned back and asked if she was OK and she said yes. I apologized again. Somehow, I didn't fall. 

The rest of the bike went well. That was the only hill I messed up. Most of it was gradual. It was kind of cool, actually, because they blocked off an entire bridge for us. So there were no cars, no pedestrians, just cyclists. No stoplights. I could seriously just ride as fast as I could (as long as I had something left for the run).

I can do anything!

The bike was over before I knew it. I ran my bike back to the transition and noticed that every muscle in my legs was burning. So this is why people do bike-runs.

I struggled to get my bike back on the rack (it's really heavy) and then ran off to the start of the run. Except actually I just ran in the wrong direction confused and lost about twenty seconds before finding the actual exit. Then I ran off to the start of the run.

I ran as fast as I could without dying. I decided it was probably half-marathon pace. It hurt a lot. I kind of liked that. It was a new challenge. Usually races don't hurt until the end, but this run was a mental battle from the start. Game on. 

I counted kills. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. This is going to be tough. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. It's just the end of a half-marathon. 35, 36, 37, 38, 39. Tempo pace. 51, 52, 53, 54, 55. Haha, I'm so fast. 71, 72, 73, 74, 75. You guys are making this easy. 96, 97, 98, 99, 100. 

I stopped counting at 100, just in time for a huge hill. My first thought was "are you freaking serious," but then I just did a five minute countdown (some short surges) to break it up mentally. I flew past more people on the hill and it felt good. I saw the finish and I ran as fast as I could, which wasn't very fast, but it was fast enough to overtake some lady from my age group. And I finished my first triathlon.

This was sent to me in an automated email with the message "Dear Talia, did you smile at the finish?"

I almost started crying. Like happy-crying, the way I felt after my first marathon. I don't know why. 

I finished 24th out of 850 women, and 4th in the 25-29 age group out of 109 women. These were my times:

Swim - 10:29

T1 - 3:51

Bike - 41:19

T2 - 1:36

Run - 19:54

Total - 1:17:07.2

I don't know how far the swim was. It felt slow for me, but mostly because I was trying to not swim off in the wrong direction. My run was actually the fastest run out of anyone there, so that was cool. But really, I was most impressed with my bike, even though it was a solid nine minutes behind the winner. I'd honestly assumed it would take me over an hour.

Here are my thoughts after my first triathlon:

• That was the most fun I've ever had racing 
• Whoever thought of this sport was clearly a cyclist
• That was like a solo relay; it went by so quickly
• I understand now why people practice transitions
• I'm totally getting a road bike
• I'm going to be awesome at this when I actually train for one

I went straight to the bike shop and got the Raleigh Capri 2 I'd been eyeing. 

Farewell, Raleigh Detour. You were a great bike to learn on!

Like Riding a Bike, Part I

I never learned how to ride a bicycle growing up.

I tried. I rode my bike with training wheels and I loved it. When my parents took the training wheels off, they told me, "it's exactly the same, just ride like you always do."

It wasn't, and I was a stubborn little kid, so I pretty much stopped trying after that.

In high school, my classmates went on a field trip to Block Island. Everyone bikes around Block Island. I tried to learn again before that. This time I was able to get moving without training wheels, but I could only go in tiny little circles, I couldn't go straight. I decided not to go on the field trip.

I grew up swimming competitively. I swam for the Bay and Ocean State Squids, which doesn't exist anymore (there's some history in that link) but used to be one of the top swim clubs in New England. I was an OK swimmer. I was never fast enough to swim for Maryland, which is why I started running, but I was OK. I swam a 5:42 500 free and a 2:40 200 fly LCM (2:23 SCY). The 200 fly was my favorite, but I liked distance freestyle. I did the Save the Bay swim (1.8 miles open water) twice.

Me and my family after Save the Bay 2007

So everyone who ever knew this about me would be like, "you should do a triathlon!" Then I'd say, "I don't know how to ride a bike." They'd interpret that as "I don't know how to race a bike" and start telling me that "the bike is the easy part." After like ten minutes I'd finally convince them I literally couldn't ride a bicycle. At all. Without falling over.

Enter Cascade Bicycle Club. At age 24, I finally got sick of this dialogue and decided I needed to learn how to ride a bike so that I could do a triathlon. I took lessons.

The formal environment really helped me. Most adults who learned how to ride as children take it for granted. When you ask them how to ride, they say they just kind of ride, "if you go fast you won't fall," "it's easy," "you just have to do it," "my older brother just pushed me down a hill; I can do the same thing for you if you want." I could say the same thing for swimming, which is honestly so ingrained in my memory from childhood that it's like walking to me, muscle memory, smooth and easy.

But I don't. I teach people all the time. And I never do that. I break it down.

So William Gerdes had me balance in place on the bike. He had me start and stop. Then start and pedal and stop. Downhill. Uphill. Then turn. Then shift gears. Turns were terrifying. Everything was terrifying. I screamed a lot. But I kind of like being scared.

I bought a bike.

Raleigh Detour

It was the most stable bike ever. It felt like it had training wheels on it.

In between lessons, I brought my bike to a parking lot like a little kid, and I practiced starting and stopping and turning and shifting. 

I took the Back to Basics course. There were other adults who were new to riding or riding again for the first time in a long time. That was cool.

Eventually, muscle memory kicked in, and I could just kind of do it. But I was still scared of riding my bike anywhere. There were cars. I didn't know how to signal without falling over. How was I supposed to ride my bike in the street with cars? I bought a car rack and drove my bike down to the Burke-Gilman Trail. I rode my bike for a few miles, turned around, rode back, and then drove my bike home. It felt ridiculous.

I got an email from William that Cascade was trying out a 1:1 mentorship program to bridge the gap between Back to Basics and Urban Cycling Techniques. He thought I was a good candidate. I said yes.

Michele Finkelstein was my mentor. We met up and did things I didn't feel comfortable doing alone. We rode in the street, from my place to the Burke-Gilman Trail. We locked our bikes on racks. Put our bikes on the bus rack. Signaled and signaled and signaled until it felt comfortable. I kept practicing on my own.

One morning, Michele rode with me to work. Then I racked my bike.

Shut up, I didn't know it was the wrong way, I fixed it later

I was going to bus home, but it was a Friday and I had the time so I was like, you know what, why don't I just ride home too? So I did. 

I stopped working with Michele and kept riding alone. I took Urban Cycling Techniques. I was probably the least experienced person in the course, but everything I learned was super useful, and I left really feeling comfortable riding in the city. I also learned some cool tricks I think most of my friends who have always been riding don't even know, like how to counter-steer to quickly turn and avoid colliding with an object and how to brake super quickly in an emergency without the back of your bike coming up.

I moved closer to work. I started riding to work every so often. I tried to get out on my bike every week. I signed up for a triathlon.

All of my serious triathlete friends told me to just use the bike I have and have fun for my first triathlon. So I didn't do any triathlon training. I kept running like I always do, I swam a few times to make sure I could still cover the distance, and I kept riding my bike every week. I never tried to ride my bike fast.

The triathlon went well. I surprised myself. It was fun, too. I'll write a race report soon.