Dewey Beach Triathlon

After my first triathlon experience in June, I decided I needed to do another one to prove to myself that I could do it without having any unforseen circumstances! So, I found the Dewey Beach Sprint Triathlon and decided to start training again. Of course "training" is relative and I could have always done more for it than I did, but I felt a little more prepared for this one at least - barring my recent ear injury and the fear that I wouldn't be able to do it.

I roped some friends into it with me - Katie and Ben did the Pocomoke Tri with me and they were all for it, Sharyn wanted to do another tri, and Tyler wanted to do his first. So, we all set out for the adventure. Katie's parents have a beach house in Bethany, DE, about 15 min from Dewey, so the plan was to head up Friday afternoon, stay the night, and do the triathlon on Saturday morning.

Ben left first, and of course missed all the traffic. Tyler and I left around 3, and got stuck in a ton of traffic. Oh how I love the Beltway. We all made it there though and headed over to the YMCA to pick up our race packets - where we saw our hard-core competition. Yikes. We drove the bike path as well as the running path so we were at least a little prepared for what was ahead of us. Straight and mostly flat - kind of a boring course, especially without being able to have iPods or any kind of headphones!

Then we went back to the house, and we were starving, so I made dinner and by the time we sat down and ate it was about 9:30. After dinner and cleanup, we gathered our things to prepare for the race, and went to bed a little while later. Or tried to go to bed. Maybe it was nerves, maybe it was the constant rain throughout the night, maybe it was restlessness, but I certainly didn't sleep well that night. It was after 1am when I think I finally fell asleep, and then I heard every person get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Strange for me, who usually sleeps through anything!! I woke up at 4:30 and was glad when I realized I could go back to bed for another hour.

5:30am: Wake up time. We tried to eat a little breakfast, which was hard to do for a number of reasons: 1) we were so tired, 2) we are never up at that time of day, 3) nerves, and 4) the late night dinner we ate on Friday was still there. We dressed, piled the bikes onto the cars (in the drizzling rain), and off we headed. The first parking lot was full when we got there, so we crossed the street, unloaded our bikes, and headed over to the site. We got our race chips, had our bodies marked (with our race number on our right arm, and our age on the back of our calves). We set up our bikes on the racks, and generally tried to prepare ourselves for what was ahead.

By the time it was time for the race to start, the rain had actually subsided - which was perfect. Thanks to the storm and warm weather we've still been having, the water (the Atlantic Ocean)was actually quite warm, a nice surprise. I was afraid of it being very cold! We hung out on the beach for awhile for the first few waves to go ... Sharyn went first, then Katie and I, then Tyler, then Ben. Each wave was four minutes apart. I dutifully put my ear plugs in before it was my turn, then put on my bright yellow swim cap (each wave was given a specific color swim cap to wear), fastened my goggles securely on my face, and waited for the fog horn to sound our start. And we're off ... we swam out to a buoy (about 50 yards out) and then turned north where we swam 1/2 mile up the shoreline and then swam back into the beach. I was already tired by the time we got to the first buoy. ha ha It was certainly different swimming in the ocean than it is swimming laps in a pool! I knew it would be, but I don't think I anticipated it being as difficult as it was. We were out a bit, so we didn't have as many waves to deal with, but you are still bobbing up and down and drifting around, the water isn't very clear, salt water is going down your throat, people are banging into you, etc ... but I did it. There was a girl who was swimming next to me and she and I kind of kept each other in check (and by that I mean we kept running into each other) until the end.

Out of the water, onto the bike - after pulling on my running skirt and top, buckling my helmet onto my head and grabbing a quick drink of water. The bike distance was only 7 miles this year because of construction they're doing on the road, so it wasn't bad at all. There was a good headwind on the first leg of it, but since it kind of felt like you were going uphill, I was hoping that it was just my imagination and the headwind would actually be on the way back ... well I soon learned after the turnaround that was not the case. It wasn't bad though, and I enjoyed it. I could have gone faster than I did, but I loved my little bike and I was pretty happy with it.

Then came the run. The first bit of it was sketchy since my legs were still trying to adjust to the running motion after kicking in the water and riding a bike - but once I got into the groove it was fine. I walked a few times, once because I had a kind of funny ache in my back, but other than that it was pretty good. I didn't run nearly as fast as I would have liked to, but I wasn't altogether disappointed in it either. Anything was better than my last race, that's for sure! I passed Katie on the run and talked to her for a little while, and then kept going. Sharyn ran past me on her way back (after the turnaround) and then when I was running the last half of it, I passed Tyler and Ben - of course they had started much later than me, so their overall times were better than mine anyway. I should have pushed myself harder in general (you know, actually 'raced') but hindsight is always 20/20, right?!? I'm new to this whole 'racing' concept since I never played any sports or anything competitively. One step at a time ... All in all, the Dewey Beach Triathlon was a success. It was a very fun short race to do, and we all had a good time. The weather worked into our favor, since the rain stopped just in time, it was overcast, and not very hot at all. I am definitely glad that I did it - at first I said that I needed to do another triathlon just to prove to myself that I could do it barring all the issues I had last time - but now that I've done one "for real" I think this is something that I want to keep doing. I would love to really train for and do an Olympic one next year - that will take a LOT of training (1 mile swim, 25 mile bike, and 10k run) so we'll see if that happens. But even if I just keep doing the sprint triathlons, its a fun thing to do - especially when you have good friends to do it with - and it keeps some variety in your training. Now I feel much more confident telling people that I have done a triathlon now since I kind of view the last one as trial run ;) Dewey Beach Triathlon, check!