The first event we picked – long before we jerked off our egos enough to convince each other that we could even contemplate running an Ironman – was the Millennium Triathlon in Grand Rapids.
The Millennium was to be Matt’s first tri (Jim already ran one…well two, but one was a joke) but the weather gods did not smile on us that day.
Our training was fairly lackadaisical (for you philistines, that means half-assed. See that, Matt, I’m always looking out for you.). We rode bikes a couple times–maybe 15 miles apiece, we ran four or five times, and swam thrice. Despite the meager smattering of training, we were fairly confident that we could finish the race. To hell with actually competing.
The morning of the race came sooner than either of us thought it would. This actually became a trend during our race season. We’d sign up for an event, months in advance, and then plan a regimented training program only to wake up the morning of the event and realize that we hadn’t done shit.
Anyway, the morning of the Millennium Tri came replete with ominous clouds and threatening lighting. No bueno for a race that involves an open water swim. We talked on the phone about the likelihood of the race officials cancelling the race and decided to head down there anyway. We met at the race when it was still dark. Parking was a nightmare – 500 cars jockeying for spots in a muddy lot serviced by a single lane road. They might as well have had a gang of quadriplegic Down’s syndrome patients directing traffic.
We set up the bikes in the transition area and then waited around trying to figure out if they were actually going to run the damn thing. We walked around a bit, checked out the swim course and the run entrance, but mostly just people watched. Jim decided that he didn’t care about the race results as long as he beat one person. So before every event he sizes people up and picks out the lucky asshole that he is going to beat. He settled on a pigeon-toed, obese man with more nervous ticks than a Belfast valet driver. He sets the bar really high in all his endeavors. Matt picked a 12-year-old girl, but changed it when Jim told him that the goal of the exercise was to beat their time, not beat them physically. He settled on a older, hag of a woman with a club foot and an awful respiratory problem that resulted in a loud wheeze whenever she picked up her pace. The melody made by the tapping of her club foot and her death wheeze sounded a bit like a rabid warthog with a bad limp.
After picking out the losers they wanted to beat, the team captains (yes, there are two captains despite the fact that the team only has two members) finalized their respective strategies. Matt can run and swim but is a bit weak on the bike; Jim is a lousy swimmer and a terrible runner, but a god damn terror on a bicycle. Likewise, Matt’s strategy was to push himself in the swim, pace himself on the bike, and run it out to finish the race. Jim had a different plan, he was going to get through the swim without drowning and then leave everything on the bike course. He made no preparations to save any energy for the run course.
On the way back to the transition area, we saw a mass exodus of people heading to the parking lot with their bikes; clearly the race had been called and they didn’t have the decency to inform Team Bad Ass. Faggots.
Not wanting to accept the fact that the race was cancelled due to weather, especially when it wasn’t even raining at that point, we decided to race anyway. We walked to the swim start and saw that a few other people had the same idea. We got into the water just as the rain started and just as expected Matt pulled away almost immediately, about 150 yards into it the Sheriff’s patrol boat with the scuba divers pulled up next to us and told us to get out of the water. Jim pretended not to hear the deputy and kept swimming, causing the boat to double back and the officer to yell.
“Get out of the water! I’m not going to tell you again.” screamed the deputy.
Jim could not resist.
“What?” he asked.
“Get the FUCK out of the water!”
Jim got the fuck out of the water.
Though the event was a failure on paper, it was a success in that it caused us to see where we needed to focus our efforts. We’d be ready for the next tri.
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