Boinked

The point of competing isn’t to trounce the competition, but to elevate yourself. – Cherie Gruenfeld, Inside Triathlon Magazine

My friends Lee and Ryan (also former collegiate athletes who could single-handedly and single-leggedly out athleticize me), recently founded a sports event management group that specializes in producing and hosting triathlons. The name, Elevation Athletics, was partly inspired by the above quotation.

Not long after hearing about the organization’s first Triathlon, to be held in Waynesboro, Virginia, fish-bowl friends/foes Stuart, Rhino, and I fell victim to the Abilene paradox, deciding to participate in the sprint-triathlon, despite this decision being counter to each of our individual preferences of physical apathy.

Preparation: The sprint-triathlon was a combined 400 meter swim, 14.9 mile bike, and 5 kilometer run; the true antithesis of what I might deem sprintable. Against the imploring of Ryan to train for the tri, the three of us found ourselves 24 hours before the race, having collectively forgone all training. I later learned that boinking is the action verb commonly used to describe this extreme physical activity without physical preparation. Perhaps in an attempt to combat the inevitability of our impending death, the day before the race, Rhino stopped by the pool and swam a few laps, Stuart went for a three mile run (after which she admittedly nearly collapsed on her bedroom floor from exhaustion), and I went to my parent’s house to pick up my mountain bike, test riding it two houses down and back. My idea of a sprint-triathlon. We calculatedly decided that the three of us would take on the tri together and collectively cross the finish line as a team.

Start to Finish: Prior to racing, registrants were required to submit their personal 100 meter swim time, off of which the participant order would be determined. Seeing as I had never been timed in the 100 meter swim, I entered Slow as a snail, placing me right behind Stuart, whose 100 meter time was Very slow. Surprisingly, about 10 individuals were queued up behind us (likely due to day-of registration); God bless them. After completing the grueling swim (to which I was mentally hummed VV Brown’s lyric Baby there’s a shark in the water as a means of self motivation), we proceeded to the transition area to move to the bikes. Well, whomever was not ahead of us after the swim certainly surged past us in the bike.Not long into the biking, Rhino had a mountain bike malfunction, her gears getting stuck in a lamentably low gear, resulting in a comedic peddles-per-miles-travelled ratio. Proceeding into the final leg, we paced ourselves during the run (a 12:30 minute mile pace to be specific). We stopped at the final water station to rehydrate and stretch out, the embodiment of chatting around the water cooler, before the last push across the finish line. After all, we wanted to make sure we had enough energy to express our excitement when we crossed the finish line; we had quickly emerged as the fan favorites and did not want to disappoint!

Reflection: The term sprint-triathlon is very deceiving. I would have elected for something along the lines of Traithlong. But I am proud that we lived up the quotation…or at least the first part of it: The point of competing isn’t to trounce the competition, as we finished a respectable 2nd…from last place.