5k Swim Race report : Whats the point?

Sometimes you really got to worry about triathletes, right? One day I am sitting at my computer, daydreaming. Set the scenario: it is a beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in the blue blue sky. How I longed to be in a body of water, wanting to forget all the stress of everyday life, cool off, and just be lost. So if you have had any experience dealing with triathletes, I bet you can predict what happened next.

So the point I am trying to make is…mmm…. lost my train of thought… a recreational triathlete (aka endurance junkie), signing up for a crazy endurance endeavor (aka freak show) is not that crazy, even though the event itself is certifiable. A 5K swim, surely I will get some sort of diploma or certificate after such a challenge?  (maybe even  t-shirt, whoo hoo).

(Did I mention cool cap, one that has bragging rights in any Master’s swim lane).

The medal that you see in this picture… well that was an unforeseen circumstance, one I will get to a bit later.

Other than 5:00(ish)am swim training sessions, many things have points. Pencils, pins and needles, nails, darts and arrows… (okay, get your mind out the gutter… that too).  But without a target, then how useful is the point? (now really… get your mind OUT the gutter, this is a G rated story).  To explain my point, consider this — I bet you choose a consequence before you choose your crazy actions? I finally decided to put the target in front of the millions of swim strokes pounded out at 5:00(ish)am, come hell, high water, or the ice age.

Fast forward: July 14^th 8:00am. Georgia Games Championships (no pressure there… “championships” LOL). Ok, rewind a few minutes. This is me standing on a dock, somewhere on the side of Lake Ackworth, trying to spot the buoy to which I will be swimming, before my first turn around, way way out there. If you squint slightly, and stand on tip tip toes, you may see that big orange triangle. Ok, go ahead and enlarge the photo already.  Yes, it is quite big, but from this dock, about 100m in from the start, it resembles an ant on the horizon.

8:00am. GO!! Off go the masses.  Now, as triathletes, we are all accustomed to the swim being a body contact sport. In fact, there is more body contact at the start of the swim in a triathlon than there is to your average NBA championship. I started to wander if it was a false start, had I missed something?? I suddenly realized there was minimal clobbering. Oh right, the masses were not that massive. And the small mass was already ahead of me right from the word GO.  That was not the only bad news, mmmm… with such a small field, the ego breaking reality of swimming (and swimming, versus crawling or rolling was starting to look hopeful) out of the water in last place was a statistically significant probability, especially from the vantage point of being behind the small mass. I immediately embraced the “it is what it is” factor, last or least, I will be finishing this thing, and the only opportunity for embarrassment will be if the finish line has been removed and the race directors and all the volunteers have left. The brochure did say that the finish line would be removed at 1:00pm for the 5k… oy, I best stop lolly gagging !

So that way off big orange ant on the way off horizon was way way off there somewhere. It seemed like hours before it was reached, and that was only mile one (just less than a third way through). When I said Lake Ackworth, I meant the entire Lake Ackworth, we will swim.  Hugging the shore line… I had a lot of time on my hands to think up random thoughts. One of them being this lake actually has a diameter of 3.1 miles. Huh, isn’t that a coincidence, that equals 5 Kilometers, who would have thought?

I had a few voices in my head (no kidding, you actually questioning that?)… One was Heidi, a well respected, amazing and talented swim coach with whom I took a few valuable lessons to become more of an efficient swimmer. My hips were rotating very smoothly, as if on an axel. Catch up drill –  a bulb suddenly went bright in my head. Ahhh, now I get it!!! Catch up, not Ketchup !! Then there is Pete (the second voice). Bless his heart… His entire mission in life is to get me to rotate my hips, and lengthen my swim stoke, at the same time as keeping my elbows high, and relaxing on the recovery…. And what else ?? feather kick, kick on the same side as which arm, I forget, pull or recovery??  — forgive me, I get lost in the highly technical details of efficient swimming – OBVIOUSLY !!! (Don’t forget, the mass of bodies is still ahead of me and I’m ahead of maybe one or two other day dreamers).

Before I forget, the third voice (amongst others) was that of Dori… “just keep on swimming, just keep on swimming.” Dori, Nemo’s lifesaver, tends to make a regular appearance in my race reports, and thus there is no co-incidence that my tri bike is named after her.  Dori, in this case, my tri bike, always beckons me to keep on swimming, while she patiently waits in transition. Today, Dori was still at home – thank goodness for that, as there will be no bike ride after this million mile swim. So no reason to not put in that extra kick and move right along.

Now being the sports nutritionist to the elites, I felt that it was necessary to be a role model too.  So with me, was my Powerbar^T chocolate gel…mmm… chocolate, all 27g of carbs of it. I even found a unique way to carry package it pre-devourment.

Gels, as you may very well know, need to be taken with about 8oz of water. There certainly was no need to carry a water bottle. Besides nowhere to logistically put it,  8 oz seemed like a drop in the ocean, and I was swimming every inch of this and swallowing a few more than 8 liquid ounces of said ocean.  Don’t be shocked if tomorrow’s headlines read “Lake Ackworth mysteriously dried up”!

So back to the task at hand… fast forward a mile or so… I am now crossing over the threshold of Ironman distance swim. This has now become the longest swim of my life, even if I did not take one more stroke. Still feeling strong and confident. Nothing like the image of that Staples^T icon of the “that was easy” on the next big (small in the distance) orange buoy. But mother nature had different plans. What’s a few raindrops added to the mix, and with that a little more sway. If Lake Ackworth is rocking, please come knocking. And please bring along a Dramamine (HINT: anybody that has ever experienced motion sickness would not have to look that word up).  Me, of all people, who is not typically prone to motion sickness whatsoever, began to feed the fish, so to speak. I was now ironically thanking Coaches Heidi and Pete for the hip swaying tips in my head.  Lucky I had not had that gel, I was so diligently strategizing to tear open. That would have been messy.

The volunteer in the kayak threw me a life jacket, but I threw it right back. At this point, that Staples^T icon was right before my eyes. Not too far ahead was the finish line, and the good news was, that it was STILL THERE. My proverbial “point” is that I was going to get this done. I have no problems with endurance, motion sickness was just a minor detour. The kayaker turned pale (what a wuss, he was on a frigging boat for heaven’s sake) – (only kidding —  the volunteers have only one thing missing, and that’s a halo). He tried to convince me that taking a break would not disqualify me, and that I should hold on to the kayak for just a moment. The funny thing is, that I was feeling strong, positive and excited. My arms were not even a slight bit tired. The only temptation I had of any pausing was to rip off the goggles and my cool new cap, if only to release the pressure they had on my brain.

Whew… I did not have to roll or crawl through the finish line. My biggest concern five minutes ago was having a race photo capture what could have been a rather embarrassing scene had the fish food frenzy not been over.  So, while relaxing, recovering, refueling and trying to recapture my sanity, I hear my name being called to collect  my medal for placing first in my age group. HEY NOW….  it is rude to ask me what my age group is, and in this story, it is also rude to ask me how many others were in this said age group!

End of story!!

ILANA KATZ MS, RD, CSSD