Source Endurance

This past weekend was The Rookie Triathlon, out in New Braunfels, at the Texas Ski Ranch. While I am a far cry from a rookie, I happened to feel like it in the swim portion of this race. All in all it was a great day out there, but I wanted to share my swim experience…this just goes to show you that no matter how experienced you are, we all have struggles on days and it really comes down to how you handle the situation.

The Open wave kicked off promptly at 8:00 am, actually may have even been 7:59. Now I am not sure exactly how many were in this wave, but I saw a lot of purple caps around me. I was even in the front of the pack as the horn sounded. I saw a few fly off ahead of me, I do not have good flat out speed, but I know this and can usually find clear water in a minute or 2. Well, considering that a minute or 2 was almost 1/2 of this swim, I guess the events to come should have been expected. I found myself in a HUGE mess of people! For the first 30-45 seconds, it was all I could do to simply move. I thought I was finding water than BAM someone on my left, right, in front, behind…I finally had to stop, tread for a second and literally move OUT of the pack to the far right and sprint to simply get around the whole pack of people. By the turnaround buoy, I was starting to feel like I could breathe but was still in a thick of people. I actually kind of laughed at myself, while of course also being terribly frustrated! But that is how it goes sometimes…

I guess the point of the story is that we really never know what will happen on race day. I know I am a strong swimmer, however I simply was in a horrible position and got buried! I believe I was in the middle of the pack at the start, I should have taken my own advice and stayed wide to the right to ‘diagonal’ in for the turn buoy. But, live and learn. I have to say though it did make me start to panic. That fear of being crowded and congested is enough to scare anyone. The key here was I said to myself, “What can you do about it? Get out of the situation.” I had to stop and take more time to get out of this mess, but in the long run I was able to relax, get into a rhythm and continue swimming. Upon exiting the swim, I had to laugh at myself as well…I thought I was much further than only 20 seconds back from the leaders! But, on to the next leg…T1 and the bike.

As I said, it was a fun day and SE had some awesome results…congrats to all the athletes out there, especially all of the ‘rookies’ who Adam so appropriately welcomed to the finish line with, “You are NO LONGER a Rookie!”