couldn't see when I pulled my head out to do my sidestroke. I tried to slip them around my neck, but they were so tight they were strangling me. I began struggling to
pull them off with one arm while using the other to keep afloat. It looked ugly from a distance, not only because I looked like I was struggling, but because with all my effort, I was in dead last place. A paddle boat came by, and the occupants calmly
asked,"Do you need medical attention?" By the finish I'd passed two
'swimmers' and came out of the water 3rd from last, with a 58 mile
bicycle race, and a 13.1 mile run ahead of me. Advice...don't ever enter a
triathlon if you can't swim! The good part about a triathlon in a filthy lake is, you can drink all you want before the race, and if you have to go, you just go. Oh, and swim clear of the smiling swimmers with the glazed look in their eyes.
On left photo, I'd just left the water with seaweed, dirt and a variety of fish fesis streaming off my body, unable to walk straight, trying to ride straight until the oxygen returned to my brain.
Hereafter I was not passed again during the rest of the race. Things went well except for the minute or two I lost in a porta-potty at the halfway point of the run. I moved up 134 places after the swim to finish 160th out of 293 competitors
in
an undistinguished total time of 5hrs 35min 27sec. I did get
26th place out of 69 in my division, but losing 35 minutes in the swim didn't
help
my placing much. I finished 291st in the swim, 95th in the bicycle ride,
and 104th in the run. I was admittedly racing conservatively because I'd had lots of problems in 1992 with ulcers caused by marriage and job stress...in the final mile of the run I decided to kick up the speed a little, and I blew by about ten runners with little effort. It was then I realized I'd not given my 100%. A little choked up, as I was the year before when I finished my first marathon (another long-time personal goal of mine) I crossed the line to my waiting wife. Then we went to Dairy Queen to celebrate, and the next day Miimii told me I could buy that Mickey Mouse jersey which I'd been drooling over at the local bicycle shop. I still wear it today (I take it off when I shower).
This was the worst blistering I'd ever seen. In my first marathon I had blisters...in this triathlon I had blood blisters on top of blood blisters. You had to pop one to reach the other. The wet feet from the swim made everything chafe much more than on dry feet.