Race Day

I still have the shirt, bright pink with Danskin 2007 Women’s Triathlon on the front and a slew of company logos on the back. My friend, Karen, has probably tossed hers, that’s how she is, totally unsentimental, not into mementos or false glory. After the race, I had to stop her from dropping her completion medal in the garbage can on the way back to the car. She wasn’t upset or anything, a medal just wasn’t a big deal to her. Me, I wanted to drive the six hours to where my mom was buried and show her my medal, maybe have a picture taken of me, the medal, and her gravestone. She would have been amazed I’d been in a triathlon. I sure was.

The triathlon had three parts – a half-mile swim, ten-mile bike ride, and three-mile run. Because we were squarely in the old ladies’ division, they had us lined up at the shore of the lake at the crack of dawn to begin the swim, assuming we would need pretty much all day to get our decrepit selves across the finish line. Karen and I stood alert and ready in our special pink caps coded for our age group, timers latched on our ankles, and race numbers Sharpied on our arms. This last bit seemed a little morgue-like to me, but I didn’t question.

And then, just as the ‘yellow caps,’ the older group in front of us, launched into the water, Karen ran off to the porta-potty. In minutes she came back, stood for a bit, shaking out her arms, getting all limber, and then ran back to the porta. The whistle blew for us to start and I froze. Should I wait for her or take off? In the distance, I could see her slamming the porta door shut and running toward the shore, skidding to a stop, and turning around. I gave up on her and started swimming. Maybe she deserved better, being a friend of thirty years, my maid of honor, so close she was more like my children’s aunt than a friend of mine, but the next group of swimmers, younger women with orange caps, was lining up. If I waited, I’d be the only pink in a sea of orange.

We’d practiced in the race lake. That meant that I’d swum in the lake before but not across the lake, there being a big difference between the two. The weeds seemed gargantuan, Jurassic Park-like, and I could only imagine the sea creatures hiding below. Something would bump me while I swam and I’d leap sideways only to realize it was another swimmer’s arm or foot that had flopped into me. This made me really miss Karen. She would have plowed ahead, tossed floating weeds to the side, and muscled other swimmers out of the way. Karen was what you might imagine an older sister would be like, unafraid, matter-of-fact, and taking care of business. I would have never done a triathlon without her.

I made it to the other side of the lake in twenty minutes. I was triumphant and elated but still traveling solo. Swimmers ran past me to the bike lot. It was then I remembered that we were racing, not just doing these three things, and then getting to say we’d done them. I found my bike and started putting on my shoes and socks and then, magically, Karen appeared. She waved away her many porta-potty trips. “You know, my stomach acts up sometimes.” I asked her where her ankle timer was, figuring that maybe it had fallen off in the water. “Oh, I took it off, it was loose and it was bugging me.” When I worried out loud that she wouldn’t know her race time she rolled her eyes while she tied her shoes. “Like it matters. Let’s get going.”

Karen took off like a shot. I figured she was paying me back for ditching her at the swim start. She rode off like she meant it, standing up to pedal, something I could never do, and right away passing a bunch of people pulling out of the lot. My start was slower. I pedaled for several minutes before I realized my handlebars were turned around and only then figured it out because my water bottle was in the wrong place. I wasn’t much of a biker and never really had a good bike although the fact that my bike could be ridden with the handlebars backward seemed like sort of an advantage.

The bike course was through the countryside. On the dozens of hills, I pedaled so slowly, I thought the bike might tip over. This was when an old couple sitting in lawn chairs, raised their beers to me in a toast, and yelled “Go 285!” I wondered how they knew my race number and then remembered that officials had written it on my arm. I went slightly faster after their encouragement but got swallowed up by successive crowds of competitors – the ‘green caps,’ ‘blue caps,’ ‘red caps.’ I cheered for myself. Just keep going, 285! Keep pedaling!

Midway through the ten miles, I saw Karen riding toward me. She pedaled past, made a big loop, and pulled up alongside. “I was way ahead so I figured I’d come back and see how you’re doing.” She rode with me for a while but then pulled away to chase down an old lady wearing sweat socks and Bermuda shorts who had passed her earlier, an indignity that required revenge. They had had words, apparently, but she didn’t go into detail. After a bit, she came swooping back to chat.

We coasted the rest of the way, through the end of the bike portion, and across the finish line after the three-mile run. We got our medals and I had my ankle timer removed. She explained about hers. Afterwards, we went to a famous breakfast buffet off the freeway and had heaping plates of pancakes and talked about our race like it was the most amazing thing two people had ever done.