race report Turkey Tri 2011

We knew the weather wasn't looking great. The race organizers sent an announcement around earlier in the week, threatening to cancel the bike if it was too bad. The prediction was snow showers with temps below 30. So 14 and I went prepared to deal with the weather. I brought several outfits to choose from, and ended up wearing almost everything because I got colder than I thought I would. I forgot to bring a coat to wear before the race started, but luckily was able to borrow one from the sister who was putting us up for the night.

I did the 5k run in 22:00 flat, which isn't bad. The bike was just around the parking lot. Less than a minute, seriously folks. Then the swim was 350 meters. They tried to start us staggered so that it wasn't too crazy in the water, which was probably a good idea. I think they ought to start staggered by expected finish time, rather than age, but I suppose anything works. It was about the same as it usually is. I passed about a dozen people in the water and was passed by one.

I could see a couple of women swimming about a full length ahead of me in the water and I couldn't catch them. I finished outside the podium overall, but first for women my age, so that was something. It wasn't the race I had wanted it to be, but it was still interesting and I got to do it with 14, so that was fun. I also got to listen to tunes while I ran, which is against USAT rules, but since this wasn't a USAT race, that was OK.

About canceling the bike: There was no snow on the ground, though there were some flurries. I think most people would have been fine on the bike, though we might have needed volunteers to shout out a warning at a couple of corners. It wasn't going to be a day for a PR, for anyone. You don't take chance on a course like that. But I get it, that most of the racers are neophytes, that it might have been their first tri, and no one wants people injured. So they cut it vastly short.

What was interesting to me was that I found myself deeply disappointed by the fact that I hadn't done the "whole" race. I tried to figure out for a while if my disappointment was because I hadn't placed as well as I had the last time I raced this course. But I didn't think it was. In the end, I came home, got on my bike indoors and finished the race mentally. Then I felt good again. I was surprised that I could do something like that to trick my brain, but it worked.

Then I started to think about how the same principle could be used in other ways in my life. If I am unhappy about something that has happened in the past that I can't change, are there ways in which I can make up for it in some way that will trick my mind and heart into accepting the substitution? I wonder if writing is that in a way, a substitution of what I wish had happened with what really did.