Thanksgiving Reverse Triathlon - fans and participants

This Thanksgiving I participated in a reverse Triathlon. This means that the event order was run, bike, and swim. Before you think that I did anything amazing know that I placed 196th out of 446 participants and it only took 1 hour and 3 minutes of my life (and 34 seconds). Our run was reduced to a mile and a half due to wet and muddy conditions (12:20 minutes) while the bike route was 12 miles (3 loops of a 4 mile course that was wet enough to constantly have water spraying off my front tire right into my face - 39:54), and a 1/4 mile swim (that's 8 laps in a 50 yd pool - 11:21). I must say that the swimming was the adventurous part. Up to that point it was my own efforts that got me to where I was. In the pool I had people swimming into me, on top of me and then when that wasn't happening there was three slow swimmers swimming shoulder to shoulder in front of me in the lane limiting my progress . . . so I did a lot of back strokes (easier to breathe and very relaxing in a swimming "traffic jam" type situation). When the race was done I thought that passing out would be ideal until the Thanksgiving meal but instead I just rudely cut off a nice little family on my way up the bleachers to catch my breath. I didn't dry heave (my logon name for the beginnertriathlete.com site) or pass out - I'm really proud of myself. I did end up going home and sleeping until the last possible moment before waking up and cooking some ham (after my wife did everything else) before heading over to my parents for a great Turkey day celebration. So this is the first part of this blog . . .

The part I found most interesting was the fans/spectators. First off, distant running or biking events are not fan friendly. You get to see someone for a brief moment and then you are bored until you see them again as they start their next event or their next loop of the same activity. So this then leads to “people watching”, of which I am a pro. In fact I'm so good at people watching that watching me watch people can be quite entertaining. I pass judgment with my expressions as I watch everyone doing the most inane things. So bear with me as I set the scene . . . This is a race where even the most untalented athlete is in a competitive mode (just ask this untalented athlete) and when push comes to shove, well we will push and shove you out of the way if you don't belong there. The course has 4 areas, the 3 event areas and a transition area to store your bike and gear as you change events. There is a clear path from each event to the transition area and to the next event. For the last event, when your competitive juices are flowing athletes jump off their bike, ditch all of their clothes but what they are swimming in and run barefoot across the parking lot, to the pool entrance and to the first lap of the pool. This area was clearly marked with a green carpet to help minimize foot injuries and slipping and to make fans and waiting participants realize this was the course and to stay out of the way. My wife and daughter Allie and I set up camp by the chip reader (every athlete wears a chip so that they can be tracked and no individual has to try and write down which numbers are going by and their correlating time etc). Again and again we'd watch participants walk over the chip reader before they even started the race. We watched people walk down the green carpet talking on the phone while athletes were trying to scurry around them. There were event volunteers constantly screaming (yes screaming . . . constantly!) to keep the course clear and still there'd be some moron casually walking down the carpet wondering why no one else was as smart as they to use this nice wide walking area. Surely everyone else must be a moron for trying to walk in the cramped quarters on either side of the magnanimous carpet they have here. People were screaming at them and just before athletes were upon them some people would give the clue less folks a nice shove to get them out of the participants’ way. Now keep in mind I'm not contributing to the cause as I continue to judgmentally scowl at these mindless fools. I did get great joy out of the shoves especially since the kid race was first and there were some really young participants that had far more heart than I did. Since they were so small they could easily dash around the clue less fools and amazingly the fools would continue to stay on the course as athletes slipped by on either side of them as they continued their phone calls with blank stares on their face. I kept thinking "try that while I'm competing, I dare you". I'm what they classify as a "Clydesdale" - that means I’m a big fatty since most triathletes are bird framed people with grace and athleticism. They have a name for the female fatty's too - "Athena". You know, actually now that I think about it, it was a Clydesdale guy that kept walking on the course with his phone - back and forth continually in the way, constantly getting screamed at, shoved and pushed.

I think I'll do this event again next year, not just for the exercise but I'll be doing it for the people watching too.

Andrew "tri-people watching" Brown