The Waiting Game and Parris Island

Most of you know that I'm a Triathlete. My Tri buddy and awesome friend, Deanna (aka D. Mermaid) and I decided to go back and revisit our first event in our triathlon journey, the Parris Island Triathlon. You know, where they "Make Marines!" I'm not kidding there is a huge sign over the street on base that says so.

Since that race is in March my training schedule begins right around Christmas. That's twelve weeks of cramming in bike rides, (mostly indoors) and training runs in the cold. 

This was my set up on the porch before it turned bitter cold. Nothing motivates me more than watching the Ironman World Championships while training on my bike. I'm almost embarrassed at how many times I've watched those races and now that I've been to Kailua-Kona it has much more meaning.

Time flies when you're on a training schedule. Before I knew it, race week was here and I was ready to rock and roll. The last week of training is always a recovery week. It's a week of no hard workouts, just staying warmed up, taking in the right nutrition, and making sure you have your gear in order. Out of the twelve weeks, this past week was the most difficult, it was a huge waiting game.

Friday came and after many days of spring like weather, the forecast for the weekend was gloom. Rain was on the horizon and it was cold, gray, and, my least favorite element of all, WIND! For the first time ever before a race, I felt like a race horse in a starting gate, not one the calm horses, but the jumpy nervous ones. I was anxious, and there was no other way around those feelings than to get on my two-wheeled steed, and get going. Three miles later and a quick visit with my mother-in-law and Baxter, I was relaxed.

D. Mermaid picked me and my two-wheel steed up and we headed down to Beaufort. It may have been gloomy outside but inside that pale yellow bug of hers were two excited fifty-one year olds ready to take on the fifty to fifty four year old age groupers.

Race day arrived and it appeared that we woke up to a huge blessing. God heard our prayers and the radar was looking clear. We arrived on base around 7:00 am and we both had an eerie calmness. The race started on time and just like last year, we waited around for what seemed like forever. An hour later we were called to jump into the huge Marine Corp pool.

The pool swim was crazy, the bike ride was windy and I felt spent on the run. The run portion of the triathlon is always a funny sensation getting off the bike. My legs were like concrete boulders. You think you're not going fast, but history shows I was faster than I thought. I had a personal record for my 5k with a time of 26:45.


Our hard training paid off on that overcast and windy day. I placed sixth out of fourteen in our age group and Deanna took home third! They make Marines on that base. But, for one day, we had the opportunity to pump our fists and shout Ooh Rah, 'cause we're Triathletes.