To Arrive: The Regional Triathlon 2009, Cancun

This is triathlon #3.

I’ve been running more, putting in more speed work, going out to run at night.

I bought a road bike, one that rides like it can cut butter: smooth, effortless gear shifting and responds to my legs. I bought it one week before this tri which meant me doing this as cold turkey as it gets. A roadie friend of mine told me that it takes a while to get used to a road bike.

I had one week to find out.

I convinced myself that it wasn’t that bad. A friend registered for a tri in Valle de Bravo but was training on a mountain bike up until then. The Tuesday before the event, he bought his road bike. Wednesday, he took it out for all of ten minutes to ride. Thursday, it was packed and ready to go. Saturday, he did the tri.

It was enough to say that the bike was his worst event and suffered wholeheartedly.

I was praying that a couple of hours of experience would give me an advantage.

The day of the triathlon: the organizers has told us to arrive later to give a chance to the younger athletes to start first. Kids from Tabasco, Chiapas, Yucatan and Quintana Roo were all there, competing when I arrived. And as the sun fell like lead, some who were waiting pulled out markers and marked their arms and legs with their bib numbers.

My pesky nerves were attacking me all week, especially when I considered the swim. I convinced myself that it was a training session, nothing more. For others, however, it wasn’t that simple. The Friday before the event, Claudia told me that she still had to find a bike. She’s an excellent swimmer but I contemplated her words. It meant maintaining your cadence in the blazing sun for 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) on a bike that was not hers, after swimming nearly half a mile, to go and run about 3 miles. I didn’t know how to break it to her so I just kept quiet. Fernando, however, had already done a triathlon (the Turkey Triathlon) but hadn’t trained too much and was a bit nervous. A marathoner and an excellent swimmer, I knew that he would pull through.

Standing in front of the ocean, the sun produced diamonds of light on the surface of the water. The men got together first and were the first heat to start. As I watched them leave, the women started to gather at the starting line. I took a deep breath and knew that today, the sea is mine.

The whistle.

I was still running through the water when others were already facedown in the water, swimming. I allowed them to get a little further away before I started swimming as well.

For the first time in the swim, I was swimming neck and neck with two other women for the first 200 meters. I, who swore that no one could be slower, found two others who were just as slow. I didn’t know them but it could have been their first time doing an ocean swim.

In the first buoy, I turned and lost them completely. The modified crawl became my favorite stroke. That’s because every now and so often, I would lift my head out of the water to see where I was. The murkiness of the water set my mind at ease and helped me concentrate.

I got to the beach and Aline, a judge and a friend, called out “34:20.” The time it took me to swim the half mile. Slower than hell. As I ran to T1, I turned to see that there were two people still in the water behind me.

Now for the moment of truth. I mounted my new baby. My Cannondale. It was so wonderfully sweet and giving that I was able to pass up five people. This being that I had a Camelbak on, due to the fact that I didn’t have bottle cages. I even raced a man ahead of me, trying to sprint as if we were Armstrong and Indurain.

I said “as if.”

Then came the problem: in the transition, I couldn’t find my things underneath the bike rack. I walk up and down for a couple of minutes, trying to find them. I spot them under someone else’s bike, who just so happened to park on top of my goggles and towel. I shoved the bike aside and I started to change. Meanwhile, the guy I raced at the end of the bike is already heading out towards the run.

I start to run.

Five minutes later, I’m praying to the high heavens to have them end the run segment.

Now would be nice.

My body felt heavy and I imagine that the little sprint wasn’t without its consequences. My heels didn’t want to kick up anymore and I knew it was going to be an agonizing while that followed.
And like last time, people started to pass me up. I didn’t care anymore. All I wanted was to finish. Nothing on my body was Harting but I felt I was now a sack of rocks.

But I continued.

About half a mile to the finish line, I saw a group of kids on their bikes. They were the same ones who were competing in the morning and now that they were finished, they were riding home in the other direction. They passed me up, rooting me on, telling me that I was close to finishing. I saw their youthful faces, fresh and smiling, filled with hope, and happy to have finished and competed.

That amazed me.

And like last time, people started to pass me up. But I didn’t care anymore. I wanted it all to end. Nothing in my body was in pain but I just felt like a sack of rocks.

And I kept at it.

A little less than a mile from the finish line, I saw a group of kids (who looked like they were in high school) riding towards me. They were the same kids who I had seen in the morning. They passed me up, rooting me on, telling me that I was close. I saw their youthful faces, fresh and smiley, filled with hope, happy to have finished and to have competed. And that struck me.

Maybe one day, one of these kids will grow up to be an Olympic hopeful, representing Mexico. Maybe they’ll become such a great athlete that they’ll win the Panamerican Games. The World Cup. The Olympics. And have the hopes of an entire nation behind them, wanting to be like them. Like Olympic silver medal sprinter Ana Guevara. Like a PWGA women’s champion, Lorena Ochoa.

Or maybe they’ll become scientists that discover the cure for cancer. Or a Nobel Prize writer.

And they were rooting me on.

I just saw the future of a nation ride by me on two wheels.

Maybe I was endorphin overloading but I was so moved that I almost burst into tears. Seeing the finish line up ahead cut me off short and I dried my face.

I can’t run with my nose clogged.

This time, there was no awards ceremony. This time, there were a lot of mad people who were ticked off that the registration fees didn’t cover, even remotely, the same perks as in the previous triathlon. There wasn’t a lot of proper organization and there was a whole mess of angry words. And as the finishing times were put down in pen and paper instead of digitally with a chip and a modem, I watch as a pelican soared over the sea and the light of the setting sun cast shades of pink and red. I remembered the faces of those young triathletes and decided that regardless of everything that happened, today, there is nothing more beautiful than a triathlon.