Line Up - Shut Up - and SOUND OFF!!!

The first annual Culver Military Academy Sprint Triathlon went a little something like this:

The road is closed. How can the road be closed, there's a race. Don't they know that there's a race right over there!? Where's the detour? The race is going to start. This is ridiculous, there's a race!

Back and forth and up and down winding country roads, corn fields, more country roads. This black cat crossed the road as we passed, and again as we turned around 20 minutes later to go down yet another set of winding country roads. The same cat. Stupid cat, go away before someone runs you over. Oh, wait, there's no one out here except us!! This is just chaos. Get used to it, come on then.

We found the race site after a bit more of this back and forth nonsense, and just in time.

See that, it passes and evens out. Chaos training, that's all...yeah, that's all.



This place was unbelievable, I mean even the stables were castles! The whole thing looked like it came straight out of a book, an old book at that. I looked around in awe for a while, but soon the spell was broken. Approaching the race registration site the chaos leaked in and muddied the watercolor.

"USATs, your cards, ma'am, you'll need to be here, your registration, what's your name?" "Huh - we, I..." "...there, the transition is there..." "...wait, is this your pen? May I use your -" "...ma'am your card...." "...driver's license please..." the bathroom, then, too? They have a castle building for the bathroom? "No, hey do you know where their marking?" "Excuse me but I...." "...ma'am your card!" "Right there, turn around, that guy with the khaki shorts." "That guy?" "No, the khaki." "The khaki? Isn't that khaki?" "Ye-" "Oh that guy, hey, that's not khaki. Thank-" "MA'AM!!!"

"Whoa! Yeah!!?"

"Here's your card. Next, please!"

Man... man... this is ....man....

Chaos training - yeah, yeah...OK. OK. It's OK. Damn...

After the backwards and forwards and sideways I'd just come from at registration, I hoped that I'd be able to remember where I put my bike in the transition area, the support of my numbered beam broke, and I had to put my bike on another rack. By the time I got to the shore for the swim leg, I knew my name and that was about it.

And then it was just loud again. Off in the distance some cadets were falling all over themselves, as what appeared to be a drill instructor gave them twenty different things to do, and all right NOW! I smiled to myself, feeling as if I could relate. Oh, but I had no idea.

"Liiiine uuuup! Let's move! Two-minute waves now, GO! GO! GO! Come ON! Let's move! When I call your number, you will sound off! Is that understood? You will line up in numerical order, I will call your number and you will sound off! One through 25, down front, let's move! Aaaaand sound off! One!?"

"Here! One here!"

I thought that it was ridiculous. Nothing but yelling and whistles, everything coming and going in eight different directions at the same time; hurrying up just to hold still. I told myself that it was just more chaos training, and tried to keep my eyes on the road in front of me.

"101-125, down front, two minutes, let's move, now!!"

And the whistle blew. Men and women, all different age groups, all in two-minute waves of 25. I didn't know what to think at first. I wasn't on the edge of the pack like I wanted to be, not being a very strong swimmer and all. No, somehow, I found myself tangled up right smack in the middle of the pack! And then I looked over and saw men about my age swimming alongside of me stroke for stroke.

The guys?? I caught the guys!? Wh-? Wow....I caught the guys!!!

It wasn't until a few minutes later that I remembered that guys my age were also in my wave, and that this was the ONLY reason I was swimming anywhere in their immediate vicinity. But it didn't matter, the placebo took effect and Mind believed for just a few minutes that we were fast enough to catch the men's swim wave. And that was enough. I found myself finishing where I'd started, dead center of mid-pack. A first for an Italian girl who couldn't put her face in the water this time last year.

It felt good to come out of the water with so many other people. It felt good to still hear the splashing behind me long after I'd hit the beach and rounded the corner toward T1. I was a swimmer today. Placebo or not, I didn't care, I was a swimmer.

There were no chip timers for this race, so our transitions were figured into our bike and run times, the swim was on its own, and though I didn't break any records, I finished the 1/3-mile jaunt in 14:53, room to improve, but progress nonetheless.


I flew out of T1, the water was nice, so there was no wetsuit to finagle, and I shoved my goggles into my swim cap to make sure that Body didn't decide to take them along on the bike this time. Oh, the horror that would have been if Lightening Bolt Shorts were out on the course. No, I wasn't going to take any chances. T1 was 1:37, and that was just fine with me. Everything was just fine with me after that swim - that is until we met the mountain.

It just went up and up and up and there wasn't even much of a chance to build up any momentum. I stayed in the saddle as long as I could, but about half way up the hill I had to rise up and pedal - hard. Pulling up on the pedals helped, and to my surprise, I actually passed a few people. But, at the top, finally at the top, the two guys I'd passed flew past me, no way was I going to catch them after that climb, and to tell you the truth, at that point I didn't care how many people passed me. To add to the mess, I discovered that my computer stopped working somewhere along the line, the chip had been knocked out of alignment somehow, so I had no idea anymore about my speed.

@$*#&!! Chaos training. &%#$@*! ...

Most of the hill mess was over within the first three-four miles. Then there were just a few rollers here and there, I started to feel good again, calm. And just then the hair on the back of my neck started to stand up.

"ON YOUR LEFT!!"

No way. It can't be her. But no one else has such a blowhole....Lightening Bolt Shorts.

"LEFTUH!!!"

I looked, and was shocked to see that it was NOT Lightening Bolt Shorts! Apparently there were two people in the world with said blowhole. This rider, too, did not understand the concept that there was no sound barrier thing happening on our bikes, thus, there was no reason to try to scream at the top of her freakin' lungs when passing someone about three feet away!

Anyway, after the astonishment in there being two of these individuals now in my life trajectory, I decided that this had to be the little sister of Lightening Bolt Shorts because only a genetic miscoding or some such ridiculousness could have produced this catastrophically obnoxious bike behavior. I knew that I had to get away from her, I knew that I had bigger shorts to fry at Steelhead. I sped up and she and her fog horn fell back. Dusted like her big sister, but ughh.. there was still the run. Body, take a gel, get the hell out of here. I don't even want to deal with Lightening Bolt Training Shorts, OK??

The wicked uphills that started the course were soon down-hill launching pads, I shifted to my biggest gear and pedaled as hard as I could, trying to kick up as much dust as possible to smoke screen Little Training Shorts back there. At this point, all I could think of was please don't let the run course be anything like this...please, please, please, please....

Final time there was 43.55 for the 12.2 miles, and T2 was 1:13.

GO!!!! I could actually run! I didn't feel wobbly-legged or anything, running felt like running!! Was it the new saddle? The new stem? Wh-? Will you shut-up and run!? Do you want that gir-

"Hhhholy mother...."

I turned the corner about 200 feet from T2 and saw absolutely the biggest hill that I'd seen on a course since the 15K through Hell back in March. This was a mountain. Oh, don't even look at me, I'm not running up that thing! Don't even start. Just stifle it, I'm going, Hell no, I'm not running, don't even start.

Body climbed the mountain, and at the top the downhill was fast and steep - only to reach the bottom, take three horizontal steps before climbing yet another mountain.

You must be @*&#%$ kidding me!

Just file it and go!

The next thing I remember I was at the top of that next hill. I looked out at the grassy fields all around me as well as the one beneath my feet, and everything was silent for a second. I heard birds, my breath, I heard the leaves rustling...I heard footsteps. Training Shorts!!! Go, Body!! GO!!!

With the adrenaline rush I took the downhill too fast and sent a little ice pick through my right knee, but fortunately it passed after a few minutes. Now, I haven't yet figured out if this was because it actually passed, or was simply demoted in the attention food chain since there were suddenly so many other chaotic things to negotiate. Oh, great...guhhhhh.....

Yes, at this point we were, in fact, passing the adolescent boys' summer camp dorms. Oh. My. God. Let me go on record by saying that there is absolutely nothing worse than running past about 100 hormone-heads after having just used up a significant portion of mental faculty in climbing up the twin peaks of Hell.

"Gooooood hustle! Keep going, heh-hey!! Good job!!"

Shut-up...shut-up...you shut-up, too...oh, you especially shut-up..."Hey, yeah, thanks!" OK, shut-up now, passing you, shut-up...run faster, go away, go away, buh-bye now...

And we were all done there. Guh.

Heh, Training Shorts is going to get caught in that net...doo de doo de doo....heh-he-heh!!!



"Left, left, left right left. Left...left..." There were companies of army-clad teenagers EVERYWHERE! Their sergeants bellowed, and running past them, I heard their pants swish in unison. I caught myself staring at them as I passed, not one of them broke form, eyes straight ahead on the road in front of them. I smiled to myself because somewhere in the back of my head I knew that some time back, chaos training had initiated this precision. They were beautiful, and then it all clicked. The unexpected construction and no detour signs, that stupid cat messing with my superstitious tendencies, the insane registration, the foreign swim procedures, the hills out of nowhere, Training Shorts, more head games with that hormone camp, it was perfect. I got it, and it gelled as I crossed the finish line.



I saw the whole picture then. The course was beautiful, the mixed swim wave enabled the best swim placement that I've ever had, the hills on the bike and run turned into gold badges, the crazy registration ended in the best after race provisions I've ever seen, peaches, cherries, pizza, enormous cookies, three kinds of sports drinks as well as water, marathon bars, balance bars, grapes, and more. Oh, and Training shorts, well, I can't say that I ever saw her again. By the end of the race, all of those wild horse surprises could only kick up a little dust.

I do believe that chaos training immunizes us, and eventually leads to order, focus, and performance.

My final time was 1:25.45, three minutes from a third place divisional podium finish. The final sheet said that my run time was 25.45/8:35 minute-miles. But that's just impossible. That 3.1-mile leg had to be shorter than 3.1 miles.

Training Shorts wasn't THAT scary...