Undaunted and Ironclad: Chronicle of the VI Open Water 5 km Swim Bacalar 2011 (26 June 2011)

It’s funny when indecision strikes. I wasn’t planning on doing this swim but now that I’ve done it, I don’t really remember why I didn’t want to. I suppose I felt I wasn’t ready. I suppose the Isla Mujeres-Cancun swim put me off.


I suppose a lot of things.

The Friday afternoon before the event, I paid for the competition and Saturday after work, I hopped on the first bus down to the swim. I cringed when I realized that once again, I got on the same bus that I had gotten on last year: the one that had stopped and picked up every single person on the highway for the 190 miles that was the length of the trip.

With resolve, I got on the bus, opened my power meter book and buckled myself in for a very long trip.

It was nighttime when the bus rolled into Bacalar. I had gotten myself a cabana about two blocks away from the event and against the suggestion of the lady giving me directions, I went walking the eight blocks by myself through the dark, lonely streets of town.

“You’d better take a taxi,” she had said.

She was talking to the person who used to go running at 11 o’clock at night through the streets of the Historic Center of Mexico City only because it was easier to run without all the people and the traffic of the streets. The person who used to go to an area called Neza, outside of Mexico City, where even the residents of the area would be scared to wander by themselves. The person who would walk home late at night, all the while thinking of easiest ways the Wüsthof kitchen knife in her bag could be wielded to cut and disarm quickly.

There were very few people in the streets, everyone glued to the tv and watching the US-Mexico game. And as I listened to the excited cries of “goooool”, I looked up and saw a sky full of stars and the distant clouds, marking a long broad stroke across the horizon.

I felt very small before the grandeur of nature.

I passed a dog that growled and barked at me. But I kept my pace steady and didn’t even turn.

I’m the Alfa. Back off and step down.

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Early that next morning, I was at the event, getting ready. I strapped on my chip, got marked and basted myself with sun block, waiting for the start. Aline lead a small group of swimmers in a stretching session.

When I put my hands on my neck and pulled my head gently forward, I made a startling discovery:

I forgot to shave.

How inconvenient.

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It was Janine’s first competition and as we stood on the pier, waiting for our heat, fear darted through her eyes as she asked several times what the route was.

The men started first and were out the gate. The women jumped in next and I gripped Janine’s hand and told her this was just the pool and all she had to do was swim.

I held her hand until the horn sounded.

“Go!” I cried.

I kept at an easy pace and sighted the buoy.

Relax your hand. Hit the water at mid-length. Once in the water, extend your stroke. Chin on your chest. Look straight down into the water.

I went through all the corrections in my head as I swam, when I realized that my stroke was the product of all the different people who have helped me become a better swimmer.

I am the product of all the different people who have made me a better athlete.

And I thought about people like Michael Phelps, Alberto Contador and Samuel Bolt and know that I will probably never swim, bike or run like these athletes. I can't butterfly to save my life. I bike okay. My run is progressively getting better after a knee injury. But perhaps that is what makes one extraordinary. That simple notion that we do it because we can. Because we do not fear the task at hand. Maybe we are not the fastest but we do not just sit on our laurels, talking about it.

And we are all extraordinary, not because we are the fastest but because we try to be faster than we presently are.

And I am a better athlete because I have had people who cared enough to tell me what I was doing wrong.

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Four laps. Why do they put us through this torture?



Montblanc Etoile

 On Lap 2, I started thinking about crocodiles and what I would do if one came out of the deep to bite me. I thought about how I would wrestle it, get behind it and keep its snout shut.



Montblanc Meisterstück Carbon and Steel

 On Lap 3, I thought about how to calculate the percentage of wattage drop between fatigue profiling test results, data which you can get using a power meter on a bike, and about coefficient drag. And then I proceeded to think about what would look better in my hand: the Montblanc Etoile or the Meisterstück Carbon and Steel.



DSquared Women's Fall-Winter 2011 Show

 On Lap 4, I thought about Emmanuel Kant (German idealist), Immanuel Wallerstein (world systems social scientist) and Henry Kissinger (ex-US Secretary of State) and wondered why oh why do I have to read them? My thoughts then wandered onto what Elie Saab dress would I pair with what Cesare Paciotti shoe. I imagined myself wearing something from DSquared's new collection (their Lauren Bacall/urban cowgirl look) walking down the street of a gritty cosmopolitan city as the smell of gasoline from the boats that were watching over us on the swim wove in and out of my thoughts.

The last buoy.

I was in the home stretch. And in a moment of clarity (tinted with what most would call masochism), I thought to myself that had I my Cannondale, I would have the strength to bike 100 km immediately after this.

I knew that I was a decent swim sprinter but that once I hit the 35 meter mark, I start to cave. I waited till I got close enough to let it rip when I saw the two red buoys: the ones I had to swim between and that I totally overshot.

Shit.

I had to swim back and in between the buoys. And then on to the finish line.

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Sometimes when people ask what I did during the weekend and I answer that I had a competition, they ask, "Did you win?"

Did I "win."

I won another day to swim when I used to be frightened out of my wits of the deep. I won another day on my bike, when I didn't have one before. I won another day to run because I didn't always take care of my knees.

I won another day to be healthy and in one piece. And that's what it all boils down to.

And so when I got out of the shower, foregoing the awards ceremony, and looked at the text from Esteban saying that I had won third place in my category, I didn't know what to think.

Even when I held the plaque in my hands, I wondered to whom I should quietly return it to because it wasn't mine.

Was it?
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Undaunted and Ironclad. Those are the words on my Road ID. I've given up on being scared of life a long time ago.

I want to live it.

Maybe my times were crap. Maybe I'm not the Crawl Queen but I know that with every stroke during that swim, I carried the words that defined me. I wear the skin of an Ironman and our weapons are our mental and physical strength and our desire to better ourselves, all the while, having enough energy to get to the finish line with our heads held sky-high.



"I've got to be strong
To climb the next hill
I've got to be strong
My fate to fulfill
And from a strength
Stronger than my will
With imagination
I'll get there."

From the song, "With Imagination (I'll Get There)" by Harry Connick Jr.

On Drugs and Rollercoasters: The “Por La Libre” Isla Mujeres-Cancun 10 Km Swim 2011 (4 June 2011)

There is a delicate nature to human emotion. There is something beautiful and mean and powerful all at once that makes it a wonder to behold.

It can make you or break you.

I once had someone tell me that it is tough to live life but it is even tougher to take it. This was coming from someone who, with a loaded gun in his hand, stuck the barrel in his mouth, with every intention of pulling the trigger.

He did not.

And it is that choice that you carry with you, knowing you have beaten off the demons, if only for a little while. But when you find that something, that spark that casts off shadows and reveals your given path, you start to understand that the answer is always there, deep inside of you.

My own demons also wandered freely. A rollercoaster ride of heartbreak, sadness, fear, frustration and a bit of anger had haunted me over the past few weeks. It also did not help that one week before, I went for a swim at a local beach and could only do three laps of our circuit; I was planning on doing 15. I was so nauseous I had to sit out for a while, something that had never happened to me. When I felt better, I got back into the water and when I was only up to my hips in water, just the rocking of the ocean made me feel queasy all over again.

I was a tight ball of emotion on the evening before the competition. And given the previous week’s mishap, I took some Dramamine. Just in case.

I kept waking up that evening. My mouth felt salty and I woke thinking I was going to be in the water five hours with that same sensation. I drank water but to no avail. I was between my bed, the fridge and the bathroom for the next couple of hours. When it was time, I got dressed, ate and hopped on my bike.

At 5:00 a.m., a group of us from the Red Cross met up and went to the ferry landing. As soon as we got there, we stripped down, put on sunblock, lubricant, packed our bags and got in line for the ferry.

On board, we grabbed an area downstairs and enjoyed the trip to Isla.

But I was not calm. Things stirred within me. I thought of all the things that happened to me in the last couple of weeks. All the feelings that consumed me. All the things I could not confront with happiness. I looked out at the dawning horizon and at the sun peering through the clouds.

Something happened. Shifted ever so slightly within me.

I invited those feelings in. I let the heartbreak, the sadness, the fear, the frustration, and the anger fill me.

Take me, goddammit. If you want me, take me. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

I felt all those feelings fill me and I willed every cell in my body to tighten, until all that was left was a thin thread, as thin as a hair.

I will not be broken.

On Isla, we waited for the start. And we waited. And waited.

At nearly 8 in the morning, nearly half an hour after we were supposed to have started, my heat was suddenly called to the pier landing to get into the water. My nerves were all over the place but if I was going to do it, I was going out with style.

We were out the gate.

I got into my sweet spot from the get-go, wanting to keep at my pace, knowing that I had the possibility of getting nauseous again and the current was strong. I had to control my body and be very kind to it so I let people pass me by and swam. The ocean rolled and bucked but I concentrated on the sand on the ocean floor and observed how, even with the current moving, it always formed the same pattern.

Underwater Sculpture Museum
Isla Mujeres, Mexico

It was in this observation that I let that thread of unwanted feelings go. I bid it goodbye.

Then I passed the underwater sculpture museum, an exhibit consisting of 400 life-size figures, anchored 9 meters underwater. It was eerie to see them there and that made me swim a little faster. I felt that one would swim up and grab me by the leg.   

I concentrated on the sand and the ocean floor below me, while sighting the buoys above. It was then that I began to think about an interview I had seen of the actor Willem Dafoe on his experience in the movie “The Last Temptation of Christ.” He had said in jest that he would like to one day have a property on a hill with a beautiful view and set up a large cross there. When people would feel like their problems were too much, he would charge them to be tied to the cross. This was said because when he filmed that iconic scene where he was on the cross, he remarked that he was so uncomfortable, cold and naked to the elements (literally) but was privy to the most amazing view of the valley before him, it made him realize how insignificant his problems really are.

And just like that, I realized that all my problems and hang ups and frustrations were really oh-so menial. What has been done was done. There is no way back.

I knew that I had a sore on my inner arm from the contact with my skinsuit. I knew that my nostrils burned from the salt water. I knew that the cord from my earplugs rubbed my neck raw. I knew my gums felt sore from the constant contact with the salt water. I knew I was going slower than I ever have. I knew all this. But it seemed so unimportant all of a sudden.

All that was important in that moment was that I was extremely gassy. I could feel the bubbles form and lift the suit off my ass. When I would turn and breathe, I wondered what the fuck did I eat that made me smell so rank?

I was not tired and so I thought about culprit foods and kept on my merry way.

How long had I been swimming? I was using my Garmin to guide me back to the finish line and didn’t want to see my time.

I came upon a second orange buoy and had by this time, accepted the fact that I was the last one swimming. When I came closer, I actually saw more swimmers heading towards that buoy and one person already there, hanging on: it was Rodrigo from the pool. I grabbed onto a knot of the rope-clad buoy and ate a gel quickly. The current was stronger than I thought and I realized that unless I wanted to feel really nauseous really quickly, I had to stay in motion. I ate and left.

About 15 minutes later, I was approached by a boat.

“We’re pulling you out! This race is over!” I could have kept going but was a little curious and climbed up the ladder. Rodrigo was already on board.

I found out that I wasn’t even at the 3 km relay mark yet and I had been in the water for about 2 hours and 20 minutes. The race cut-off time was 4:30.

I was in shock. That is a horrible swim time.

It sucks being the last one.

But I looked around and saw that there were quite a few people still in the water and in the area where I was picked up. That’s strange. Everyone can’t be that slow.

There was a man in my boat who had done other local swim competitions. He prepared for this one by swimming in the pool six days a week, doing five kilometers every single day.

He was picked up before I was.

More and more people were being picked up in the area. An older lady who was already on board another boat, vomited viciously into the sea. Another woman that was picked up after I was had thrown up several times during the course of the swim and looked as green as her suit.

I love you Dramamine.

We were all taken to a bigger boat where everyone on board looked like a damn sorry mess. More than one looked like yesterday’s dinner was going to be front page news.

I inadvertently overheard others who do swim races on a regular basis, saying that this was the first time they were pulled out of one.

Then the shocker: I saw Fer Maraton, a fabulous swimmer and triathlete, on the back of a jet ski, looking a bit miserable. 

What is going on?

Back on land, the whole boatful of people I came with crossed to one side of the finish line so as not to activate our chips. Claudia, Mari, Andres and Roberto were waiting for me. Even as they cheered, I glumly told them that I hadn’t finished. It didn’t matter: they hugged me anyway. And then, the shocker of them all: most of the strongest swimmers from the Red Cross weren’t back yet.

It was past the four-hour mark.

At 4:25:29, Dami came back in. His eyes were deeply marked by his goggles. They had started to press onto his face so tightly that they started to suction his eyeballs off his face. He had finished out of sheer pride and swore that he would never do this race again.

He was sixth in his category. 55^th overall. This is the same person who did the same race last year (but from Cancun to Isla) in 2:11.

Joaquin came in a bit later.

They were the only two that I knew who had finished this race. No one else that I knew of did.

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Getting off the boats, I watched my friends arrive, one by one, dead on their feet, a little dejected and more than a little disappointed.



Salt Water and Ear Plug Cord Burns

 And then I saw a swimmer, one of a very few who actually finished and who was carried in and placed on the timing mat: he was a double amputee with only 6 inches of each leg. As we all applauded this phenomenal man, I knew that if I didn’t appreciate what I have, I’d be a damn cynic.

And it all comes back to the choices we make. What we decide to do with our time. Who and what we care about. What is important.

I could have stayed on that rollercoaster of emotions and have let myself be governed by the sadness. I could have anchored myself to the bottom of my emotional abyss. My friend could have pulled the trigger. That double amputee could have stayed in a wheelchair. I could have opted to not do this race, bail out and choose what was comfortable.

But I did not. And they did not.

I am a triathlete. But I am a human being and a woman before that. And I remember the essence that makes us whole. Those elements that remind us of our failings and our strengths. That happiness cannot exist if there is no sadness. That these elements are important to have but they serve their purpose in the moment they present themselves.

That we have the power of choice. And I choose to get off this rollercoaster.

Thank God for Dramamine.

DNF (Did Not Finish): Chronicle of the Cancun State Triathlon at Punta Nizuc (3 April 2011)

It was 2002. I remember because I was watching the World Cup in Japan and South Korea. Pride had taken the helm then and instead of calling my parents to help me because money was very short, I decided to suffer through it. I remember eating a bar of cooking chocolate because it was the only food I had and lying on my stomach to watch soccer because otherwise, I would be spending too much energy and I didn't have the food to keep me going.

They were hard years. So hard that I dipped into depression and I had asked God that if there wasn't a further purpose for my life, to take me. I had scarcely enough of the work I hated to make ends meet. I couldn't pay rent. I didn't have gas for the stove and hot water nor money for toilet paper and toothpaste. My credit card was maxed. My phone line was cut. The rent collectors banged on the door as I cowered in the corner. This existence was painful. I did not want to go on.

And nothing happened. It was as if there was an unspoken word that was said.

One word makes all the difference. It doesn't take much.

I took that as a sign to go on and continue.

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DNF. Did Not Finish. That's what happens when a triathlete, for one reason or another, cannot finish. I've never had one before but this time, I was thinking I may have to.

Tuesday evening was the last time I ran before Sunday's triathlon. My knee has been off and on since the time trial in January and after therapy and two weeks of rest, had started to feel strange after a 30 minute run. The evolution during the week had gone from not doing the tri, to doing the swim and the bike to "let's see what happens".

"Just see how your knee feels after the swim and bike," Joseph had said.

Like I said, it only takes a couple of words.

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Sunday morning rolls around and as we walked down to the swim start, I enjoyed the sun and the smooth feel of the water against my skin.

This is going to be a fast swim.

Minutes before the swim started, the event organizer announced that due to a conference on drug trafficking in Cancun, the bike leg will only have one lane open. Five meters of space for two-way bike traffic. Please let there not be stupid bikers today.....

The men started out the gate first as the women lined up on the beach. When I got in the water, a pelican flew low over us. It was one of those unique kinds of moments to which only you feel privy to, a kind of private salute from Mother Nature herself. I raised my hand, as if to say hi.

Waist deep in water, I got ready to start.

The horn.

I attacked the water and felt strong. My hands kept diving in between other swimmers who were in front of me as we raced to the first buoy. The water was calm and save for the occasional wave caused by the jet skis, it was smooth sailing.

Out of the water, I ran to T1. Running through a path marked by beach loungers, I made it to my bike and took the necessary time to remember everything I had to get on my person: bib number, sunglasses, helmet, bike.

I was out the gate.

I sped on and felt as if a bird of prey stood inside of me. It was slowly opening its wings and extending them as far outwards as it could. Enormous wings flapped downwards and pushed on the air.

My feet shoved themselves forward into my shoes as I passed someone. And then another. And then another.

But I wasn't sure if I could hold out. I haven't trained for this. The run. That blasted run. My knee had protested on Tuesday. Will it hold out?

I opted to slow my pace a bit as I slid into T2.

Hang bike. Take off helmet. Put on cap. Wash off feet. Slip on shoes.

I was out of the gate.

Before I realized it, I was running down the path. Wasn't I thinking to not do the run? No tweaks. No twinges. My knee feels okay. I can stop further along, if I need to.

After running across the dirt path, however, my knee started to feel a bit funny. I slowed to a walk and decided maybe I should just take it easy.

Lau from 3BT ran alongside.

"Come on, Fumiko! Let's run!"

"My knee..." I protested.

"Then we'll run together," she had said.

We'll run together.

It only takes a couple of words and I didn't stop running till I got to the finish line.

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At the run turn, there were a group of teenagers who were passing out bottles of water. They held out their untopped bottles of waters when one of the girls said something that I wasn't expecting:

"Wasabi!" she said.

I looked at her hard.

It only takes a word. I could have blown up and did something regrettable.

But I didn't.

Instead, I took a bottle of water from a young man standing in front of the girl.

"Thank you," I had said.

The sudden cacophony of hoots and hollers surprised me. As I turned the corner, I realized what had happened: I was the first competitor to come through and say those two words to them.

It wasn't my intention to be malicious and I would never knowingly do so unless I was provoked. But my pride found control of my voice and said to the girl,

"We foreigners are just better that way."

She wasn't phased at all. Someone had said "thank you" and where I was from didn't matter at all.

It only takes a couple of words.

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I started out the day expecting a DNF. Instead, I found a series of words that each in their own way lifted me up, as if they were that bird of prey that I have inside of me. And when I think back to those days when I had to choose between paying my bus fare and eating, and asking God what the purpose of my being alive was, I remember.

I remember that you are only as strong as the words you use. The words you feel. The words you know to be true.