Tri-Athletic Champions

Christopher and I successfully completed the 25th Anniversary Donner Lake International Triathlon. We have medals and everything proving it.

It started with a one-mile swim in the 68-degree lake. This is actually on the warmer side of its average but is still fairly freakin’ frigid. We had wetsuits to keep us warm but Christopher had a slight technical problem with his wetsuit. He bought it about a week before the race and never got a chance to actually swim in it. He moved all around when trying suits on and thought that it fit him just fine. Unfortunately about five or ten minutes into the swim he couldn’t breathe. Perhaps it was the combo of heavy breathing because of swimming at 6,000 ft elevation, the cold water that is constricting and all the movement of swimming. But whatever the reason, it is generally “not good” if one can’t breathe. Chris ended up clinging to a kayak in the middle of the swim and somehow managed to peel his wetsuit off in the middle of the lake in the middle of the swim portion of the race. No small feat, I can assure you. It took me several minutes and a lot of effort to pull my wetsuit off when I was on dry land. Off it came though and he chucked the suit into the kayak and continued on his merry way with nothing but his tri-shorts on. I guess he said it wasn’t too bad but that his legs were rather numb for the first bit of the bike ride. All in all Chris’ time for the swim was pretty miserable, but if he hadn’t had the little equipment malfunction it wouldn’t have been so bad. As for me, apart from not being able to see anything at all for the first third of the swim due to a rising sun being directly in my face, I kicked ass in the swimming. I actually surprised myself and did the swim in 26 minutes. That is two minutes faster than when I did the race five years ago and when I was in much better swimming shape. Of course this isn’t all that fantastic if you look at the times of my fellow Donner Lake tri-athletes, but a triathlon is about individual achievement, right?

Whatever time he lost on the swim, Chris made up on the bike where he destroyed that mountain. The bike portion of the race is 25ish miles and quite vicious. One starts at the lake and immediately climbs 1,200 feet to the summit in the space of just over three miles. And that isn’t even the hard part. This nasty little climb is followed by a very fun 9ish mile downhill. This backside isn’t as steep as the front of the mountain but I think it actually involves more elevation change. So how does one get back to the lake and the run portion of the race? One turns around about mile 12ish and goes alllllllll the way back up that fun downhill. This is the part that sucks. By that point I was tired from the swim and the 1,200 ft climb but just had to keep chugging up the mountain. At least with the front part it is wicked hard but short enough that you can get it done in a short period of time. With the back it just keeps going and going and going and going. When you reach the summit though it is almost worth it. Exhausted and sweaty and salty and dirty you reach that very last crest and see before you the Tahoe National Forest and the Sierra Mountains and Donner Lake sparkling below you and all you have is a white-knuckled, 1,200 ft descent between you and finishing this killer bike portion of the race. Actually, when I put it that way, it is totally worth it when you get to the summit. When I did this race five years ago I actually started crying when I got to the top. Now that I’m so much more matured and seasoned I avoided an emotional breakdown and just zipped along my way. And I made the bike portion in really great time. Chris motored by everyone and finished in a mere hour and 30 minutes (ludicrously fast), which was his goal, and I managed a very respectable hour and 42 minutes, which was three minutes under my goal.

As you might expect from mortals such as ourselves, we were both darn tired by the start of the run. And of course, in a trying triathlon such as this, the run is longer than in a standard international distance triathlon. The standard is a 10K run (6.2 miles.) As we were running around the entire lake (at altitude) the run had to be 6.5 miles as that is how far it is around the lake. But we plodded along. At one point I got a little bit disoriented. It was around mile 3.5 and we had already rounded the far end of the lake but somehow this hadn’t really sunk in because we’d been running in the woods for a little while. All I knew was that I saw the lake looming long before me and I thought that was how far we had to go before starting to head back to the transition area and finish line. I was panicked. I thought there was no way I could make it if it was that far. I was also bewildered and doing some very, very foggy math in my exercise addled mind. I knew we had passed the 3-mile marker and so had to be about halfway through, but how long was the run again? And maybe the route on the other side of the lake was more direct? And what is my name and where do I live? Okay, so it wasn’t as bad as that, but I was thoroughly confused for a little while. Luckily I pulled myself together and figured it all out just in time to face the hill. It wasn’t a bad hill, really. It was just that it was the last thing I wanted to see at mile 4. A nice little 200 ft climb on thoroughly exhausted legs. I jogged up the first part that wasn’t as bad and then when I was faced with the steep section I saw people walking and thought, “you can do it, you can run up this hill, you can do it.” And then I couldn’t. There was just no way. To my credit, after walking for a little ways I then rallied and made myself jog all the way to the telephone poll before the water station. There I let myself walk again until I’d passed the water station and drunk and doused myself with water. Christopher, as far as I know, didn’t have any moments of delirium, but he did have some cramping. I wasn’t there when he crossed the finish line but was so focused on his cramps that I hear he was a tad bit grumpy, didn’t get his finisher’s medal and wouldn’t pose for the nice photo his sister-in-law wanted to take. By the time I slogged across the finish line a few minutes later he was in better spirits. I avoided the urge to burst into tears, we took this lovely photo and then got Christopher his medal. Somewhere in there I collapsed on the ground and laid there for a few moments.

All in all, we did fantastic. Meaning we finished and we had fun. It was a beautiful setting for a great physical challenge and best of all there were so many great people everywhere. Although the race is comprised of some seriously great athletes who take their event seriously, everyone is very supportive and friendly. Whenever I passed someone on the bike they cheered me on and when I was having trouble with the run those passing me gave me their encouragement. I also had nice little conversations with people as we biked or ran along together. Just about every race volunteer along the course told me how great I was doing and locals watching the event cheered and rang bells or offered high fives and sprinklers to run through. Chris and I had our own personal fans also. His brother, sister-in-law and nephew came up to take photos and cheer us on. Unfortunately, the only photo they got of me mid-race was from the back as I ran by in my wetsuit (that is me in the wetsuit with my arms up trying to unzip my wetsuit and the woman in the blue two-piece rather blocking me.) A client of mine also went up to Donner for the day to kayak and catch the race. They just happened to drive by while I was running so slowed down to give me some encouragement and offer me a hat or water if I wanted it.

As for official results, after accounting for different start times (they start you off in waves so you don’t have 500 people swimming all on top of each other), Chris and I finished with times that were just about a minute apart. I whomped him on the swim, but he caught up with me on the bike and run. Overall I came in 325th and Christopher came in 323rd. This is out of 411 finishers but over 500 who signed up. I think many of those who didn’t finish probably never even came up that morning, but I know that there were at least 420 or so who started.

We concluded our Sunday with dinner from Subway and sitting on the couch watching TV, drinking beer, and eating potato chips. We then passed out around 9 or 9:30 and I was tired until Wednesday. It was great!