Vancouver: The Swim

The International Triathlon Union (ITU) World Championships were held in Vancouver, B.C. last week, June 3 ,4, 5 and 6. Each day included races for different categories of athletes including Juniors, Under 23, Elites, AWAD (“Athletes With A Disability”) and my group, the Age Groupers (for both a sprint and an olympic distance race). Triathletes came from all over the world making for an interesting mix of languages, accents and team uniforms. The Age Groupers for Team USA numbered about 400, with around 20 being in my age group (about 67 total from all countries).

I got the car all packed, found my passport and started a little Road Trip.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blog entries, I had concerns about facing the cold water in English Bay in Vancouver and I knew my lack of consistency and volume (hours per week) in training would limit my race. Still, I aimed to have fun, get in a good workout, accept the certainty of a race without any PR’s and enjoy the experience of being part of group of internationally accomplished age-group athletes (even though some part of me wasn’t convinced that I really deserved to be there, I did qualify fair and square).

The afternoon of my arrival to Vancouver and the next day involved team pictures, a team meeting, team dinners and breakfasts, riding the bike course around Stanley Park and racking the bike in the transition area. I met many new Team USA people (most seemed to be from warmer climates and didn't quite know what to make of the 50 degree rain). I saw Dave and Francie, the couple I'd met at Nationals a year ago and recognized some others from last year as well.

Finally race morning arrives! After setting up my transition area and going for a jog, it was time to head for the beach.

I wanted to take a picture of some spectators. Many were bundled up in fur-trimmed parkas, wore thick gloves and winter boots. And here we were about to swim in this cold, grey water followed by a bike ride in skimpy wet lycra.

Slaying Dragons

Camera crews were here and there at the beach. As I waited in the corral before going onto the beach, one big lens was in my face (ugh! I go mute when asked anything in front of a camera). The cameraman asks me something about the race or why I am doing this to which I answer: “I’m here to slay my personal dragons…I’m going to face that water”.

HUH??? What the heck is she talking about? That probably ended up on the editing room floor. But actually, I had thought about this metaphor before, my dragons being things like Fear, Doubt, Pride, Laziness. Fear about facing the cold and the discomfort of racing, of looking slow, inept, old, ridiculous; doubt about my abilities and about my business to be here; pride having to do with some self-imposed pressure to improve my own performance and maybe not being able to do so. Also pride being the impulse to just give up rather than have a mediocre or even a bad race. And laziness - staying in a warm bed sure seemed appealing that morning! Those dragons and others are part of the human experience that I believe visit all areas of our lives at times (except for a few egomaniacs and those with delusions of grandeur who crash arrogantly through life). Athletic competition provides practice in slaying dragons.

(No actual dragons were harmed in the race or the writing of this blog. Any resemblance to actual dragons is purely coincidental. The author neither endorses nor condones mistreatment of actual dragons, and apologizes to any dragons that may take offense at the metaphorical use of "slaying dragons".)

Cold…

The big topic of the weekend was the weather! Even for the Pacific Northwest, it was unseasonably cool. Because of the cold weather and many hypothermia cases in the Thursday and Friday races, race officials shortened the Saturday AG swim from 1500 meters to 1100. Each day of the championships had some combination of cool, wet and/or windy conditions. My Age Group wave was the lucky one to experience all 3 and to such an extreme that just after they sent us out for our swim, the swim portion was canceled for the remaining Age Groupers, 2/3 of the pack consisting of women 55 and older and ALL of the men. For these groups, the race converted to a Duathalon (run 5K, bike 40K, run 5K), which caused much grumbling in some and much relief in others.

(This picture is the next day just before the Elite women started. They had calm water as you can see. And a lot more photographers clamoring around the start line.)

The water temperature reports varied from 11 degrees Celsius to 12.8 depending on what news source you got (that’s 51.8 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit). Air temperatures were in the low 50’s and who-knows-what with the wind chill. Any way you slice it, that’s darn chilly by most OW swim standards. I kind of think 55 was closest to accurate for my swim. The cold water wasn’t painful on my face and was tolerable once I started swimming.

…and Wind

The canceling of the swim was not due to mere chilly water, however. The wind picked up suddenly about 1 hour before my race and increased in intensity as my start time of 8:05 a.m. approached. All across English Bay, there were white caps and swells. The waves crashing on the beach weren’t too bad, but the buoys and boats rocked wildly offshore. One news report I read later mentioned “adverse weather conditions”, “nasty 5 foot wind-chop”, “raging currents driving swimmers towards shore”, and “moiling water” (online definitions for “moiling” include: to churn about continuously; confusion, turmoil; violently agitated; turbulent). Here’s an article: http://www.insidetri.com/article/71453/cold-water-high-waves-throw-itu-age-group-world

I later chatted with a swim volunteer who said the rescue boats (and there were precious few of them for those conditions!) pulled around 20 women out from my wave and the boats were capsizing in the surf! I found this clip on You Tube showing a few seconds of the waves during the swim exit for an earlier wave of swimmers: Waves:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=889400540020585501&q=Vancouver+triathlon+2008&ei=B9JMSJuyBqCm4QLS8bWMDA&hl=en

Here’s my experience in the water: God Awful! For some insane reason, I found myself front and center at the start line (around 130 women, age 45 to 54). Even in a small local race where I’m likely do well in the swim, I avoid front and center. At Worlds I should have been off at the edges and definitely not in front. The gun went off (kind of hard to hear as the neoprene cap and second, colored swim cap kind of muffled sound) and we ran into the surf, diving into the swell. I’m on auto-pilot for a few moments and swim hard out of excitement.

(This photo - not my own - is from the Elite women's race on Sunday, a much smaller group and I notice none of them wear the neoprene caps that many of us had. Made of tougher stuff, I guess.)

Something Resembling Swimming

Excitement turns to near-terror for a few moments as I realize this ain’t no normal swim. Next, it was just bewildering (time for another online definition; bewilder: to cause to lose one's bearings; to perplex or confuse especially by a complexity, variety, or multitude of objects or considerations). The agitated water was a challenge (what I’m doing barely resembled or felt like normal swimming and it took my full attention to avoid freaking out about this somewhat alien environment). All the flailing bodies make me realize I just need to get the hell out of the pack. I accomplished this by moving forward and diagonally and allowing them to go around me. Thankfully, no one tried to swim OVER me, (maybe my defensive kicking kept that at bay). I think getting pushed under would have put me over the edge on managing this. I needed to stop and breast stroke plenty of times in the first couple minutes and less so as I got some space around me.

Be The Dolphin

Soon I get into as close to a steady rhythm as swimming in a washing machine can allow. My goals were to just keep moving forward, avoid swallowing/inhaling too much salt water, avoid nausea or vertigo if possible and stay in control of my mind to avoid pushing any panic buttons. Stroke timing was mostly dictated by the rise and fall of waves and I felt rolled about. I can’t say that I swam all that hard as I didn’t want to go to the edge of breathlessness and fatigue. I felt like I needed some reserve for the occasional smack of salt water in the face that robbed me of a breath when I wanted one. The pack was very spread out and I could tell I was closer to the rear. Which was ok with me. Being bewildered and all, I forgot my mantra "Be the Dolphin" (a team dinner 2 nights earlier was held at the Vancouver Aquarium where I enjoyed the underwater viewing tank and watching dolphins dart around. I thought visualizing that grace, speed and ease would be a nice thought for the race. Nice thought).

Turning towards shore, the waves now helped by pushing me along. My hand felt the bottom, then I was raised by the surf and lost contact. Next thing I know, I’m abruptly dumped onto my knees in 6 inches of receding waters. Sensing my opportunity, I scurried out before the next surge could catch me. I was surprised by the lack of dizziness and ability to immediately run, unzip and pulled off cap and goggles and I headed into T1.

Lisa Walker (45-49), Tracy Orcutt (40-44) and Sandy Laurence (50-54) are racing acquaintances from the Seattle area who had good races that started with good solid swims. Lisa and Tracy are usually tops in their age groups and usually earn overall podium finishes and Sandy is no stranger to the podium for our AG. Final results are still pending, but I'm sure congratulations are in order to each of them and I hope they are pleased with their races.

Next: Transition 1 and beyond…stay tuned.

There is Dave C. from California, our unofficial USAT cheerleader. He kind of badgered me into staying in the race when I was close to pulling out last April.