I'm In

This summer I am heading to New Hampshire for a partial family reunion. I only made the decision to go last week and started looking at races up there. Initially I wanted to do the sprint tri called the Timberman which is apparently a local favorite. Unfortunately it was already full. I continued to search and found the Tri-Maine triathlon called the Urban-Epic.

This will be a HUGE step for me in my triathlon history. There are a number of firsts. It is an international or Olympic distance which is a 1.5K swim, a 40K bike ride and a 10K run. I have no problem with the bike. I've ridden that distance countless times, though I'll be doing this on a borrowed bike. I am in week seven of the couch to 5K running program currently and have been on week seven for two weeks now. This is just me getting back into running. I've run many 10K, but not in the last few years. I haven't even begun training for the swim. The other thing which is HUGE. I mean breathtakingly huge, is swimming in the ocean.

I can't tell you how scary that is for me. I've been in the US Army, I've been through combat training, I'll jump out of airplanes, I'll repel off mountains, I've owned several snakes, will save spiders (from my Mother and my cats) and move them to safer quarters outside, l love rodents of all types, have owned and loved many a rat and I truly can't think of anything that I am physically afraid of. Except the water. I have no problem swimming in pools. I am a good swimmer. I don't look like I'm drowning while I swim. My technique is good, my strokes well-placed, but that is in in the safety of a pool. Where nothing is out to eat me.

I live in Central Florida. Just north of Orlando. We have alligators (which is also our state reptile), cottonmouth water moccasins, lots of other water snakes which aren't venomous, but still very scary to see swimming along, turtles of all sorts including the snapping turtle and chicken turtle, both of which have a nasty bite capable of removing a finger and rogue monitor 4-foot lizards. And we have these little ameobas that swim up your nose into your brain and can kill you within a week. And that's only the freshwater hazards.

The closest beach to me is Cocoa Beach, about an hour away. That is the shark attack capital of the world. No, I mean it. More people have been bitten at Cocoa Beach than anywhere else in the whole world. Now, no one's been killed, but I don't want to be bitten or eaten. I also saw Jaws when I was nine. It was 1975 and we were at the New Jersey shore. I can say I have been back in the ocean over my knees exactly never since then.

These fears may be irrational and illogical, but they sure as heck are real. Now I have done races in fresh water and as long as I was with a bunch of other swimmers, the fear was manageable. I figured I just had to not be the last person in the water. The critters in the fresh water would have been scared off by the mass of swimmers, but this Maine tri is different. From the Epic-Tri website:

"The Urban/EPIC will start from the decks of a Cianbro barge anchored in the middle of Casco Bay. Athletes will be brought to the barge on two Casco Bay Lines Ferries. They will then jump from the barge and finish 1 mile away at East End Beach, completing one of the most spectacular swims in the world."

And all this fun in water that averages a warm 60 degrees. OK, so the final first in all this is the thing that is going to make me look like a tasty seal. In 60 degree water you need a wetsuit. Now, I don't own a wetsuit. In Florida you may have one race a year that even allows a wetsuit, but generally the water just isn't cold enough to allow a wetsuit under USTA rules. But in Maine, a wetsuit is required so I don't develop hypothermia. The really big downside of wearing a wetsuit is that you look like a seal to any passing wildlife like sharks or whales. A big tasty seal snack. I feel sick just thinking about it. Onward!