A first-hand account of the triathalon
By Judy Tattersall
I couldn't believe the wind and the waves as I stood at the end of the pier at Rum Point.
I was feeling something I hadn't felt in Cayman before cold!
An elite swimmer jumped in to start his warm-up swim, and swimming at a good pace out towards the reef, he simply didn't move.
The current was that strong. It was like watching someone in a wave pool.
Soon enough, though, I found myself waist-deep in water, waiting for the starting gun. My teeth were chattering, I was sure that I had already burned up all my fuel just getting this far.
The swim was one of the hardest physical things I have done in recent memory.
I consider myself a fairly strong swimmer, although I have not trained as a swimmer since I was a teenager.
But I am strong and I can do proper strokes. However, that day, the swimming was hard. I would stroke and stroke and stroke, and the same coral head would be below me.
I would try to get a glimpse ahead through the waves towards the yellow markers, and they would still be impossibly far away.
I tried breast-stroking, which helped with the waves but doesn't move you through the water as quickly as freestyle.
I could be 10 feet from the marker and simply not be able to get around it.
I had been told that the swim course was pretty because you could see the fish and the coral below, which is true.
They were down there but when you have been swimming for half an hour you don't want to see that same piece of coral anymore!
Nor do you want to drink any more sea water.
The windward direction of the triangle, swimming with the current, was quite amazing.
I felt like an olympic athlete breaking records as I swept rapidly over the coral and fish below me.
But that only lasted a few minutes before I was back trying to round another marker and head towards the pier to begin the second loop.
Out of 116 individual entries, only 48 individuals completed the swim part of the triathalon.
The waverunners and kayakers were kept busy scooping struggling swimmers out of the water.
Every time I looked up someone was getting a free ride to the beach, and I envied them! No shame on these swimmers' parts, either, those were grueling conditions.
The last 100 feet or so into the beach was also a struggle, even though most people were walking by that point.
Trying to bounce through the current and against the wind certainly burned some of the energy from my legs, energy that I would need in the next segment on the bike.
Once I got on the bike, and realized that it had taken slightly more than an hour to do the swim, something that I figured I could do in less than 30 minutes, I slipped into "let's just get this done" mode.
I didn't know the roads out at Rum Point and wasn't quite prepared for the jarring asphalt.
Lots of little bumps and rough spots. But my bike is great and we hung in there, not breaking any records by any means but focusing on getting on to the run.
My husband passed at one point in the car, with our three little girls in the back.
They waved and cheered me on, but I wondered how he would cope with the three of them at Rum Point as he is currently on crutches, and I was only on my first loop of the bike.
But there they were as I turned to begin the second round, yelling and calling for me to win!
The sun came out for the run, which seemed rather unfair after all everybody had already suffered. Probably the only true sunny hour in that whole day.
The run was two loops through to Kaibo and around the other side.
The run is my strong segment, it is what I do mostly to train.
A nice young man named Ryan ran the first 5 km with me, as we were running the same pace.
He was quite well known on the course, it seems, as everybody was cheering him on. It's how I know his name!
I perhaps have him to thank as countless times I wanted to just hang back a bit, to take it easy, but the competitive spirit in me wouldn't let him get ahead!
And once I was done with the first half of the run, the second was just a matter of keeping going.
It took me three hours and 30 minutes to complete the triathalon, a time that I am proud of even though it is hugely longer than I had hoped and planned.
But I did it, completed it in its entirety, and on a day like last Sunday, that in itself was quite an accomplishment.
Congratulations to all! When's the next one?