About 5 minutes into Dharmaspoon Gal’s swim in the Iron Goddess Triathlon, I heard thunder. That’s not a sound you want to hear around open water. Moments later, hundreds of women were headed to shore.
As the competitors waited out the weather, the race director had to decide how to proceed. After some discussion, the decision was made to allow competitors to either swim half of the original distance or to swim the entire distance they had signed up for.
About two thirds of the field opted for the shorter distance, but, I’m happy to say, not Dharmaspoon Gal. She had trained for the full distance, and this was her test; nothing more, nothing less. She got back into the water when the weather cleared, and proceeded to do her best, and with results to be proud of.
I witnessed all of this as a spectator. For obvious reasons, I did not meet the criteria of “Goddess” and thus was barred from competition. In this way, I found myself in the role of spectator for the second time this year. As an avid competitor, it has been interesting to see what it’s like from the spectator's point of view. This particular race made it even more so.
First, the swim course was quite…um…festive. Normally you have buoys. Sometimes, a mini-blimp. Well, this course was a little more tacky adventurous. There were balloon rainbows, giant inflatable sharks and ducks, and a large floating turtle as well.
I got to overhear the lifeguard briefing, where there was serious discussion around the importance of telling the swimmers to “turn right at the turtle” and to “keep the ducks to their left.”
The start of the race was hilarious. The race director used a siren to start the race, which the boisterous participants in the first wave (mostly newbies) thought was some kind of party sound and started waving their arms in the air like they just didn’t care.
There was the cancellation of this first swim attempt and then the restart with two different distances. Here’s where it became clear that there were people there to test themselves and people who were there just to get through it with the minimal amount of effort.
At the transition area, I saw Dharmaspoon Gal make a swift 30 second transition from swim to bike while some of the other gals took the time to change outfits in tents and reapply makeup.
During the bike portion, I saw $100 department store bikes that didn’t look like they were going to make it out of the transition area and $7,000 triathlon bikes that looked fast just on the racks. One gal finished her ride very slowly, explaining to the crowd that she lost her glasses along the way and was “riding blind.” I barely saw Dharmaspon Gal on her bike she was so fast.
At the run, I saw women running like they meant it and women walking like it was a day at the park. I saw old timers and new timers; Women who were giving it all they got and women who didn’t even break a sweat. I had the joy of being able to run along side Dhharmaspoon Gal for the final few hundred yards of the race. Not that she needed the encouragement. During the run she had befriended another competitor and they pushed each other to the finish, each running personal bests.
I pondered the idea of a women’s only event. Was is empowering? Was it patronizing? Was it just another race? In the end, I think it was what each individual competitor made of it. And maybe that was the point.
No comments:
Post a Comment