Boulder Stroke & Stride Race #1

This post is about my (Meggan's) athletic goals.  I'm a little late on my New Year's Resolutions this year.  It's taken me a while to get settled into being able to work and move away from the lifestyle of only being a mom and nothing else.  So here are some of my goals, even if I'm about 6 months late in writing them out:
1) hike 3 mountains over 14,000ft
2) go to 5 new states
3) take Rachel on a backpacking trip of at least 2 nights and 3 days
4) complete a half marathon in less than 2:30
5) complete an Olympic distance triathlon
6) do a ski touring hut trip in the winter of 2012/2013
7) leave the continent and travel somewhere international before I turn 34 years old

So... in working on goal #5, I decided to sign up for the Boulder Stroke & Stride series.  This is a Thursday night event for 10 weeks throughout the summer in Boulder.  There is a lake swim followed by a 5km run.  The swim can either be 750m or 1500m.  Until recently, I hadn't been in the pool in almost two years - since I was pregnant.  I got back in the pool on May 28th and swam 4*200m and it was HARD!  I swam a couple more times in the pool and then went to the lake last Friday.

Now, open water swimming isn't something that I have found very easy.  I have done three events before: Terrace 2007 and two Oliver triathlons of 750m each.  Each time I have freaked out.  People around you splash and kick, the water is cold, it's impossible to breathe or see or relax.  Even when I did my sprint tri in 2010 and had been training and knew I could easily swim that far, I ended up breast stroking almost the whole way out of fear.

So when I went to the lake last Friday and went into panic mode again, I became really scared for this first Thursday event.  I couldn't figure out how to breathe in the water at all.  I was so discouraged.

Enter super husband.  We got a sitter on Sunday and Jason came to the lake with me.  He helped me with tips on my wet suit, splashing, waves, and other crazy swimmers in my way.  He also got a sitter for Thurs night and decided he would come do the event beside me, to help me.  (Of course he hasn't swam at all since Ironman 2010, but he's super human.)

So today I worked all day at work, then raced off to drop Rachel off at the sitter so we could make it to the start.  We had a quick warm up and started.  There were about 200 athletes racing in the different events.  I was really happy because I stayed calm and tried to find my own space and go slowly.  Jason swam beside me.  I did not panic.  I managed to breathe and keep my face in the water most of the time.  I definitely took breaks to catch my breath, and I definitely have not trained properly to do it well (yet).  But it felt okay.  Possibly even good.  Not too scary.  Jason kept smiling at me and telling me I was doing well.  And before I knew it, we were nearing the beach again.  I got out and could breathe just fine.  I think it took us about 17 min to swim, which is slow by swimming standards but a lot faster than drowning.

Then we ran to the grass area, transitioned to our running stuff, and 4 min later we started off on the run.  Jason had already ran high elevation mountains for 2.5 hours today.  I have not ran at all in at least 2 or 3 weeks.  5km seemed like a long way for me! I tried to push it for the last mile and am a bit embarrassed to say it took me almost 29 minutes to run it... but I did it.  I was so thankful for Jason's support.

I plan to do 5 more of them this summer in preparation for other events, and if I'm really courageous I might even try one night of the 1500m swim.  But first I have to get in the pool some more, and find some time to run again.

Thanks for your support!!