Over-Reaching

 Sunday was the Tri for Humanity and for some odd feeling last month I saw the ad to sign up and also get 10% off registration when using this code thingy so I decided to do it.  I was like "This is a sprint triathlon and I am currently swimming, cycling, and running so why not do this triathlon?"  The swim was a 400m in a small lake, the cycling portion was a 12 mile double loop, and the run was a 5k so everything sounds great right?

 The race day temperature of the water was a nice 65 degrees and I was at the event an hour early to sort out diabetes and all my "What if" situations I could think of.  Thirty minutes before the event they opened up the lake to test out the water and loosen up.  At that point I was like do I get in the water and see what 65 degrees feels like or just wait till we line up for the start?  I chose the second option which probably was the wrong one.  Once we got in the water it actually felt quite nice and I had just bought a wet suit off of craigslist (everyone I know kept telling me Dave you know what people do in those things right?  Like I don't know people swim in a wet suit) which fit me perfect and I really liked the extra buoyancy it gave me in the water.  Then the race started and I was feeling fine fresh and foxy till the water temperature hit my chest and caused my sinus to drain down my throat which led to my heart racing to 170bps and that is when my breathing was shot and I had to milk it in the rest of the way.

By the time I finished the swim I felt like I couldn't breath and I was coughing up some real nice bloody snot.  Then it hit me, listening to all those time Vic told me to push through the now tight chest, coughing, and bloody snot I was spitting out and just get on my bike and start riding.  The first loop of 6 miles I sounded like an emphysema patient that had escaped the hospital and by the run my breathing settled into a nice watery wheezing.  The good thing was that I recovered at mile 2 of the run and picked up my pace for the last 1.2 miles and finished strong.

Now was this smart of me to jump right into a triathlon one week after Ragnar?  Probably not and I think that is why you all read this blog is to keep checking for the funeral notice but not today my friends, I finished this triathlon and now have a base to work off of and another race in the win, no I mean finished column.  My friend Don likes one of my classic sayings is that if you are having a bad day at whatever you are doing (running, walking, biking, swimming, or knitting) stop trying to beat yourself up about having a bad day and relax and just work on one thing and learn from it.  That is exactly what I did and am going to keep doing from this current episode of "I shouldn't be alive" and work on my transition from biking to running, my splits, swimming, and look for some sort of diabetes friendly decongestant if this happens again, oh and yeah get my butt in the water and warm up before the race starts.  The bad times are when you learn the most about yourself.  I learned I look like a dork in a tank top, wear old man sunglasses, and take to many vanity pictures of myself.