Two watery races
For those who have never finished last in a race, here is your opportunity to sample the view from the back—if not for entertainment, at least as a cautionary tale. And perhaps as reassurance (in case you should ever need it, not that you will any time soon) that a last place finish while unpleasant in some respects is not fatal.For those who know all too well what last place feels like, maybe knowing someone shares your pain will help you carry it more lightly. At the very least, it will be proof that a last place finish while unpleasant in some respects is not fatal.
Either way, I hope my story serves its purpose—whatever that may be.
The two races, in order of appearance, are the September Splash 2-mile open water swim in Wildwood Crest, NJ, Sept. 26, and the Jack St. Clair Memorial Cross-Country Championships—women’s division (6k)--on Philadelphia's Belmont Plateau, Sept. 27. My order of appearance at the finish line in both races: not just last but so last that the timing had already begun for the race following mine.
The Swim
While I was confident that I could complete the swim distance, I was less confident in my speed, which went AWOL and has not phoned home. A 4600 yard swim during Labor Day weekend was the last significant distance I managed, and a combination of pool closings and my schedule sharply reduced practice time after that—not that my speed earns me bragging rights to begin with. Even so, I had some small hope that it might be just enough for, say, second-to-last place.
What I didn’t count on was an equipment issue.
In an open water swim, all swimmers are given and expected to wear swim caps. Quite reasonable—keeping track of swimmers is made easier by a uniform collection of caps. However, it’s especially helpful for these caps to stay on their wearers’ heads. For the most part, I’ve not had problems with this issue, although in a previous September Splash mile, I had made the mistake of wearing tinted goggles, which reduced visibility. As a result, I pushed the goggles up on top of my head, causing them to work themselves loose and come off—taking my cap with them. I thought I’d solved the problem by getting clear instead of tinted goggles for future open water swims, thereby eliminating the temptation to deep six them in mid-swim.
Indeed, for the next couple swims, caps stayed on—even through the Great South Bay swim which was more than twice the length of the one I did on Saturday. Problem solved, I figured.
Problem not solved. Some might tout the benefits of long hair as extra insulation against cold, and I thought of this as I put on my cap. What I should also have realized is that long hair can also get into the eyes and over the mouth of a swimmer taking a much-needed breath. Currents I can take. Chop, I can live with. Hair in my face when I take a breath--um, thanks but no thanks!
The first sign of something amiss came at the start when another swimmer warned me that my cap was coming off. I shoved it back on and thought nothing more of it…. just wanted to get on with the swim.
My start was, as I expected, slow. I had no plans to push the pace, and I figured that if I just kept at it in a steady fashion, some who had sprinted out too fast would come back to me. But even if they didn’t, I had no doubt my steady effort would get me eventually to the finish, and that I’d have a good distance workout--with a finish time that showed I could sustain a freestyle stroke over two miles.
Trouble began in the first lap of a two-mile oblong loop that had swimmers start against the current and then switch directions to swim with the current. Just before the turn-around, the cap had worked itself loose and my “insulation” was blocking my view—and blocking air from getting into me when I breathed to my right. This required breathing only to my left—going back to pre-bilateral breathing technique… and even resorting to breaststroke (here I should mention that the gulf between my breaststroke and, let’s say, Brendon Hansen’s, is wider than the Pacific Ocean). It also required stopping and holding the kayak while trying with only limited success to replace the cap.
These cap adjustment stops became more frequent. As I neared the end of lap one, swimmers passed me--swimmers finishing lap two. This didn't bode well for my time, but I pressed on, taking some comfort in the fact that at least I was still on the course.
At the end of the first lap, the kayaker who had been helping me asked if I wanted to just finish. “You’d have to do this over again otherwise.”
“Well, yeah,” I thought. "That's kind of the point, isn't it?"
I had signed up for two miles, not one—getting up at O-Dark-Thirty to swim those two miles. I wasn’t going to quit after a mile. And really, despite the annoyance of the cap falling off, I was feeling fine and knew I had another mile in the tank.
"I don't mind if you don't mind," I told the kayaker.
"I don't mind," he replied. "Let's get going!" Okay, the man's with me. We're good.
So off we started on lap two with the cap’s efforts to escape intensifying. The kayaker almost had me talked into turning short of the turn-around buoy but I was not going to have that. Somehow I reached it, and finally, we were headed back and with one or two more cap stops, the cap finally, reluctantly, agreeing to accompany me the rest of the way.
Problem solved, yes?
Well, yes, except for one thing.
The aroma of a barbecue wafted over to me from the shore. "And that's a problem?" you might well ask.
Don’t get me wrong. If I’d been hanging out with friends on the beach, my mouth would be watering. But combine the smell of cooking with the effort of swimming—in salt water with equipment problems surfacing every five or so minutes—and … no, you don’t want to know what could result.
Fortunately, the finish was close enough by that point that I could simply focus on the swim, count strokes and remind myself that this would be over soon. "It's just a swim. It's just a swim. It's just a swim."
And so it was--just a swim. At the finish, I was greeted by applause, assistance, and a digital clock that said “6:30.” Did that mean it took me six hours and thirty minutes to swim two miles? No. This was the elapsed time for the children’s quarter mile swim already in progress. They’d stopped recording my time. Never mind. If smelling barbecued food didn't send my stomach into overdrive, seeing my actual time would have finished the job.
All I could say about this race was that I’d done the two miles. Not gracefully, not fast. I seriously wondered if it was worth continuing to dream of the long swims I had targeted. Who was I to think I could do such things? All the talk I heard of people staying with different groups, pulling ahead of others, and all I could offer was that I finished very, very slowly, what I had started--nothing to be especially proud of, to justify any self-confidence.
However, I thought of the finishers’ medal I'd brought with me that day from the Great South Bay swim. That had been a longer swim with severe chop at the end, and I had successfully completed it thirty-five minutes under my goal time.
I could decide to judge myself by this wrestling match with a swim cap—or remember where I’d been and be confident that I could learn from my experience and move forward.
Meanwhile, why not enjoy the real value of the day: time with friends, a post-race lunch, conversation, and knowing there are good people who help others in a pinch:
- Andy's offer of a ride to the swim and an emergency loan when I discovered I'd left half my cash at home by mistake (fortunately, I found it on returning home and was able to repay)
- Bonnie's and a stranger's rescue during another post-race hair crisis
- The kayaker, Cliff, who stayed with me the whole time during the swim, despite its taking forever
Those times of need that require us to depend on others may be what keep us human and help us to give back when others need us.
***The Run
Not content to leave the weekend with just one race, I decided, very likely against my better judgment to return to a favorite racing venue: Belmont Plateau.
Although this was billed as a run, with the soaking rain during the night, I wondered if it would instead morph into a swim. No problem, in that case, as I’d already warmed up for a swim yesterday. My swimsuit, dry by then, was ready for service. But no, the puddles wouldn't be that deep, would they? So, running gear it was--but with retired shoes that I wouldn't mind getting wet.
Since I have spent much of the year not running any races due to one injury or another, I thought the wisest course of action might be to skip the race, and even on the way there, I wondered if maybe simply volunteering would be the better choice. I’d told Dave I’d be there to run and/or volunteer.
But how could I resist running on that soft, mushy, swampy mile across the playing fields, then return deep into the woods to reconnect with Parachute Hill? These were my old friends. I’d played on these fields and in the woods many times during those two summers of training for the marathon and during the races I’d run on this course through heat, through cold, through rain….
Speed? I had managed on occasion sub-9 minute stand-alone miles during practices, but aside from that, this course ate up my speed and spit it out at my feet.
So what? I continued to love it as one does a passionate, crazy friend, who teases you into scrapes that leave you exhausted but all the more alive. I have learned to love its long stretches, its hills, those puddles left by rainstorms, and I wasn’t going to miss it, even after noting that the eight women who made up the field included an American record holder, several Penn undergrads who ran track and cross-country, and assorted other faster runners.
No worries. I’d had practice finishing last. I had trained for that position and was ready.
With the start horn sounding, we all set off for Flagpole Hill.
The other runners quickly gapped me, and soon I was taking a solitary run, occasionally encountering course marshals who guided me at forks in the paths through the woods. Otherwise, I was on my own—and realized it was a lovely place to be on my own, the trees hovering over me, the puddles that I decided to run through rather than avoid.
This was my first race (aside from a couple of low-key track meets) since last December—and so all that mattered was simply to run--not race. And know my limits.
If my foot or knee began to hurt too much, I’d pull out rather than risk a setback. But as I progressed through the course and realized that my moving parts were working, the relief was palpable.
And there in the woods, I felt that I was not truly alone—that the trees, the raindrops, the squirrels, the gravel, the packed down dirt were my companions, my friends from way back.
It would be time soon enough to emerge, circle the playing fields again.
And during that last lap, the men who’d started soon after I’d reached the top of Flagpole Hill for the second time, dashed past me as I approached the turn toward the finish, setting out on their own sojourn in the woods. In no particular rush, I stopped to give a couple of them room to pass me. And I couldn’t resist joking with a couple of spectators, “I bet you didn’t know this was a co-ed race.”
"Go co-ed!" they called.
Reaching the finish, I relaxed a few minutes, grabbed some water, and after the women’s award ceremony (I won a medal, there being only two of us in the 50-59 age group), took my post near the finish of the men’s race to cheer and help collect tags.
I was glad to cheer in all of them, first place to last. No two journeys through those woods were the same, and we all emerged with something of value, I believe.
As for me, I kept my hat on today, but the thoughts in the brain under that hat roamed free. Perhaps it was they who were trying so hard to push the cap off my head the day before—they wanted to skip across the water, play with the fish, leave the everyday world behind, enjoy the adventure.
posted by DPMcManus @ 5:17 PM
1 Comments:
Congratulations, Dr. McManus, on your determination and win!
Also enjoyed your article on Ms. Ndereba's journey in the April/May issue of Liberty Sports Magazine. When they put your story about her up on line you'll have to point us all there!
Mary Jane
Post a Comment
<< Home