#9. Buoy by buoy: The Victoria 70.3 Half-Ironman Swim
Surviving the part most first-timers dread
Starting this newsletter back in August, I began with the prologue from my first 70.3 race—at the beginning of the half-Ironman swim. If you haven’t read that part, you may want to start there first. I circled back to explain some steps in my training (all available in the archive), but it’s time to finish the full account of that 70.3 race or I’ll never find time to record more recent triathlon tribulations!
Springtime in B.C. seemed to be delayed by several months. The swim for the May race in Victoria came close to being canceled due to unusually frigid temperatures, and I spent many weeks fretting. Much as I feared the cold-water swim, I had no interest in doing a “mere” duathlon!
When it came my time to enter the water, I high-fived the athlete next to me, a tall woman who said she could only do breaststroke. She was a competent swimmer, she said, but was concerned about staying out of others’ way. We were the absolute last of nearly two thousand swimmers.
Entering the lake, I started alternately crawling and breaststroking, just trying to get my face used to the bitter slap of the turbid, choppy water. This is why I’d done one long ocean wetsuit swim in the weeks before the race, and following that, a series three-minute swimsuit-only meditative submersions over several evenings, standing neck-deep in the 50-degree ocean. (My husband did them with me. Kind soul!)
The coldwater dips were the only trick I could come up with for attempting to physically acclimate—or at the very least, trick my brain into a sense of calm confidence.
So far, it seemed to be working. I didn’t feel completely panicky—only sluggish. Then I realized how long I’d been standing outside, in bare feet and without extra layers beyond my wetsuit, since before dawn: two hours. I was simply cold and stiff. I had to believe that once I got moving, everything would feel better.
Ahead and around me, other swimmers were thrashing and bobbing and getting in each other’s way. As a group, we looked more like passengers who’d jumped off a sinking ship rather than those impressive Ironman videos of age-category experts churning up the water.
I had chosen the absolute rear position assuming I was slowest, but this wasn’t so. I passed a few people and was close to a woman who seemed to be calling for a rescue from a race volunteer on a paddleboard. Only a couple of minutes had passed. But that’s what happens when people enter the cold water. Anything can happen, whether it’s heart trouble or a panic attack.
I got clear of some stragglers and then had the “smart” idea to tighten my goggles, which weren’t fitting properly. Rolling to my back, I pulled them—and, by accident, my pink swim cap—off in the process. The goggles went flying. The official pink swim cap, too. My brain leaped to the worst conclusion: without the cap, I’d be disqualified!
I reached forward and managed to grasp both goggles and cap before they sunk into the dark lake. I struggled to replace my tight cap and goggles. I could just barely make out a paddleboarder near me, probably watching to see if I, too, needed a rescue.
I did my best to look calm and purposeful, and I rolled to my front as soon as I could, adrenalin fully fired up now. Then I swam as hard as I could for the first big 100-meter buoy.
And then the next one.
Breathe, calm down, stroke, glide.
The next one.
In the pearly gray light, with my poor vision, I couldn’t see the long line of buoys all the way to the turnaround, only a few at a time, and that was perfect.
The next one, the next one, the next.
The large pyramidal-shaped buoys had looked intimidating from the lakeshore, but now they were my friends, helping me divide this hour-long challenge into two-minute chunks. My goggles were fogging, I couldn’t see where all the other swimmers were, but I didn’t have to. One buoy at a time.
Remember this, I told myself, ever on the lookout for lessons I could take home from the Ironman. What could I do in life if I simply took things buoy by buoy?
I gave myself permission to take an extra few seconds at each floating marker, if I needed to.
On the turnaround, I felt a building sense of giddy and incredulous relief. The hardest part was almost over!
Surprisingly, I actually felt like I was making progress and possibly even speeding up. But there wasn’t too much incentive to catch the swimmers ahead of me. I’d only get kicked in the face.
Somewhere just ahead of me was the beach where we’d climb out. I had no idea when to stop swimming. When I finally felt gravelly mud beneath my feet, I tried to stand, a bit wobbly.
I did my best to look like a real triathlete on my exit, pulling off my hood and cap, and reaching back to tug my wetsuit zipper down, as if every second mattered. But at the same time, I couldn’t start running. I needed to find my glasses. I’d left them on a “special needs” table designed for that purpose, marked with a banner, just where we’d entered the water.
I walked up the ramp and back again, squinting. I couldn’t see any banner. I searched the crowd for faces. Mostly, I could see only blobs.
Where was the glasses table?
Where were the volunteers?
Was anyone noticing that I looked lost?
I turned and waved my arms in confusion, hoping some volunteer would notice, and turned again. I couldn’t see well enough to proceed far from the beach.
Finally, my husband and I spotted each other. He was just behind a barrier. He said something about my swim time—it wasn’t bad. 51 minutes. Now the trick was to make sure I didn’t waste another ten or twenty stuck in transition.
I begged him to help me.
“They have my glasses! They’re supposed to be around here, somewhere.”
Even before Brian could catch onto what was happening, I stumbled toward an unfamiliar table (no banner) and asked two people sitting there. I couldn’t even tell if they were volunteers or spectators. They didn’t seem particularly interested in my problem.
Slowly, one of them held my eyeglasses out toward me.
“Oh. Are these yours?”
“Yes!” I screamed.
I pushed the glasses onto my wet face and charged back up the beach slope, into the transition area, indignant and fretful. Had that moment of confusion cost me one minute or five? My sense of time was muddled.
Absorbing the fact that I’d made the first cutoff, I made my way to the area where the bikes were all parked. I needed to calm down and assess myself. Was I cold? I couldn’t tell. Was I dizzy? A little.
In the bike aisle across from mine, a man was seated on the damp grass in his tri-suit, arms around his knees, trying to catch his breath between unhappy sobs. I wondered if he’d gotten knocked about in the swim or was simply disappointed with his time. Lucky for me, I couldn’t be disappointed. I was still appreciating the simple fact that I hadn’t drowned. Ah, the benefit of low expectations!
Pawing through the bags next to my bike, I talked myself into slowing down enough to eat three small, salty boiled potatoes—a tip given me by a new triathlon friend named Jon. Good for the carbs, a nice alternative to icky-sweet Gu gels, which I’d be eating later, and good for warming up before heading into the wind on a bike.
I realized that I needed to pee. Just a little. The outhouses were far away. I was wearing a completely soaked wetsuit that I was about to peel off and leave behind.
The choice seemed obvious.
I peed. Then I poured a bottle of water down my front to rinse off. I peeled off the wetsuit. I pulled cycling tights over my thin, wet tri-suit bottoms.
(Squirming readers, take note: It’s not unheard of for triathletes to piss as they ride, but I wasn't ready for that kind of advanced humiliation yet.)
Exiting the transition zone with my bike, I passed two women who seemed like friends, chatting and pushing their bikes slowly toward the mounting zone. Not wanting to get in their way as we reached a chokepoint, I called out. “Ready for the next part?”
“No, no,” one said amiably. “We’re done. Already going home.”
That made at least four probable DNFs (Did Not Finishers) I’d crossed paths with, already, as well as one possible DNS (Did Not Start) who’d slipped out of the swim line-up and never came back. Added to this were the hundreds of others who registered but didn’t show up at the start due to injuries, changes of heart, dislike for the weather, or other reasons.
On the one hand, people will say about triathlons, “Anyone can do it.”
On the other hand, at any race, you will see this: people who have trained dozens or more likely hundreds of hours, but didn’t even make it past the first leg.
The two women pushing their bikes seemed to be laughing about it, anyway.
I wished them well and hoped I’d have the same good attitude whatever happened next.