Besties for the Cure

I'm posting this picture first so that you know that, in the end, there were smiles:

Because let me tell ya, folks - "Besties for the Cure" wasn't my first choice for the title of this post. With the experiences preceding the Tri for the Cure, there were a few other clever titles that floated through my head...like, maybe, "Cri for the Cure" or "Die for the Cure," possibly even "Hurl for the Cure." But when it was all said and done, "Besties for the Cure" really was the only appropriate designation.

The day before the race was a busy one - not exactly how you expect to "prep" for a triathlon: little girl swim lessons from 8:45am-9:45am; a fun, rainbow-filled birthday party noon-2:30pm-ish; a mad dash to the Tri for the Cure expo with Jess and three tired and sweaty kids to pick up our packets immediately following the birthday fun. To be honest, the summer itself has been SO busy that I didn't really train for a triathlon. Sure, I continued to be loyal to Jillian Michaels, but I had swam a total of ZERO times and biked only thrice. Running was a challenge, too, because I blew a tube in my double jogger in June and the 100 degree temps weren't much of a temptation to fix it.

Anyway, after all the Saturday afternoon birthday-party-fun, Jess and her brood (meaning Emma & Gabe) came down to have a spendover - the race gave us a good excuse to get our kiddos together and for her and I to spend the evening "relaxing" (as if, there were 4 kids at my house, three of which were lacking naps). We planned a pasta dinner in Tri-preparation, but during the attempt to be a sous chef, I got my first omen - and never again will I peel roasted jalapenos without gloves on.

Yep, I did what any novice cook knows not to do - I touched my eye less than 10 minutes after working with jalapenos and poblano peppers. At first, I calmly thought, "Oh no! I can't believe I did that, this is gonna sting a bit." Within moments that turned into near terror and I was hovered over the sink, prying my eye open, trying to rinse it with water, all while screaming "like [I] was in labor" (according to Jessica). This continued for what felt like half-an-hour while my eye was trying to expel itself from its socket. Eventually I could open my eye and see, but I felt like the jalapeno juice was expanding out in rings and burning my face off. If you've never tried this trick, I don't recommend it. Take this as your PSA to wear gloves when working with peppers!!!

By the time I was done thrashing around the kitchen, Jess had dinner all cooked up and ready to eat. Mmmm....pasta with homemade red sauce, mushrooms, and a yummy, peppery cream sauce. With one snafu behind me, you wouldn't think I could screw up eating, would you? Well, my friends, you would be mistaken. In an amazing feat of complete-and-total lack of hand-mouth coordination I chomped down on my fork wrong. And CHIPPED MY TOOTH. I couldn't recreate this ridiculous maneuver if I wanted to - one moment I was eating just fine, and the next I was chomping down, weeber-jawed, on a large, metal utensil. What. The. Heck.

When dinner was done, we quickly got the kids into bed ("bed" being a pallet on the floor in which the "who-is-gonna-sleep-by-who" game went on entirely too long). Unfortunately, Ellery didn't get to participate in the madness, but not for lack of wanting to.

Spendovers with Besties are SO much fun!

Once we were reasonably convinced that the kids were going to sleep without much of a fight (don't be confused - they still tried to stay up late, but their little exhausted bodies got the better of them. At the last spendover, they didn't sleep until after 11pm! This time, they were out by 9pm....but I digress). Once they were settling quietly, it was time to really prepare for Sunday's triathlon.

With my eye still bloodshot and my tongue completely unable to contain itself from fondling my new, not-visible-to-the-eye-but-still-very-present tooth chip, we gathered our Tri gear and loaded our bikes in the truck. The latter was, surprisingly, a heck of a challenge that required assistance from the hubs - but with a little ingenuity we got both bikes loaded up, still with a few moments to sit and chat/watch TV before heading off to bed. We were, after all, getting up at 5am to leave, so getting a good night's sleep was a necessity (and to that end, Jess and I convinced John that he should sleep on the couch so that we could both get a good night's sleep in the bed =)

Right as I was climbing into bed that night I texted a good friend of mine (who was also doing the Tri) and said, "Tonight I got jalapeno in my eye and chipped my tooth. I'm afraid this is a bad omen." She replied, "Nope, things can only get better."

Ha. Ha. Ha.
As if.

The next morning we woke up on time, dressed quickly, stopped at Starbucks, and merrily sipped coffee and listened to the best "pump up" music we could find in Jess' truck - Vacation Bible School tunes (I'm serious) - as we easily made the trek down to Cherry Creek Reservoir. We arrived in good time - our wave started at 7:08am and we were parked before 6am. Perfect! We began unloading our gear and bikes when......

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.

There was no front wheel to my bike.

You have GOT to be kidding me.

You see, to load bikes correctly in Jess' truck, you have to take the front wheel off. Pretty much every time I've ever had to load my bike I've had to take my front wheel off (i.e., not an uncommon step). But it doesn't matter how common or uncommon it is - the fact was that my bike was missing one very important component, and there was no way I could unicycle my way through a triathlon.

I was stunned to silence. I couldn't think, I couldn't move, I couldn't walk. All I wanted to do was find some grass and puke. Somehow, I was more mortified than angry; more shaken inside than temper-tantrum mad. There was no time for us to go back to my house, get my wheel, and make it back in time - the only option was for me to either throw in the towel or call my sleeping husband who was at home with four sleeping kids under 5-years-old. And since I'm not generally a towel-thrower, John it was.

He groggily answered the phone, and while I explained everything to him, Jess started querying all the cars around us, "Do you have an extra wheel?" "Do you think they might have one down at the race start?" all the while getting her bike and gear ready; all I could do was hold in puke and talk on the phone. Because I have the best husband EVAH, he agreed to wake up four children, load them (illegally) in a car, and tote my wheel down to Cherry Creek Reservoir.

While I half-carried my bike down the long trek from the parking area, making great effort to not hurl with each step, Jess channeled her inner-bestie-ness and started flagging down traffic directors (telling them that they would need to let John through to get as close as possible) and race officials (to find out if we might be able to get an extra wheel). She walked me down the hill to the race and talked me out of quitting more than once. Before I knew it, we were headed into the transition area and we found our way to the Bicycle Village booth to inquire about wheels.

Of course they didn't have any, but by that time John was well on his way. However, the Bicycle Village booth wasn't totally unhelpful - as we were getting our tires aired up to the proper psi, Jess' back tire started to bulge and the nice BV folks pointed out that her tire treads were showing. So, I didn't have a wheel and Jess had a tire that was about to blow at any moment. Awesome. What a way to start a tri!

As we were walking away from the booth, the guy called us back - he hadn't found a wheel, but he DID find a tire. Hooray! At least one thing worked out.

We found a transition area spot (I thought JJ was gonna have a throwdown with a lady who was obviously taking up more than her fair share of space), began unloading our stuff, and I was finally loosening up a bit. I didn't want to start in a later wave, but if John didn't get there in time, I could. I still wanted to hurl, though.

From there, everything started happening very quickly. John was close, getting through barricades. Time was ticking down - it was 6:50am. At the last barricade, however, there were police. Now John isn't a criminal, but he's also no dummy - and he wasn't exactly being a law-abiding child-toter. Needless to say, he didn't feel quite comfortable driving up to a group of policemen to ask about getting through their barricade.

Somehow, by that time, Jess had taken over talking to John on the phone - now that I think about it, I'm not exactly sure how I got out of the loop. Huh. Interesting. But anyway....they decided it would be best if he just found someone walking down and asked them to bring my wheel - so that's what he did. A nice girl named (ironically) Jessica, with blue shorts and a green bag - and carrying and extra wheel, of course.

With panic-mode fully set in, Jess and I waited for the girl to come down the hill. We waited. I went and got our swim caps and goggles. We waited. I went and got Jess' wetsuit. We waited. The Star Spangled Banner was being sung. We waited. We waited until there was a seven on the clock.

I don't remember what she looked like, and I'm not even sure I saw her. I just remember having the wheel, getting it quickly aired up at the Bicycle Village booth, rushing over to my bike, having difficulties getting it on so that the brakes weren't rubbing, and running down to the water. Our wave was less than four minutes from starting the swim when we finally busted through metal gates to find our red-swim-cap-clad group (in case you're curious, ideally you're lined up well before then :)

Being a triathloner (and not a triathlete, a distinct difference), I think the distraction of the morning probably helped me. My biggest problem in both previous triathlons has been that I get inside my own head before the swim. This time, I just jumped in and swam - no time to do anything other than that. Jess, on the other hand, is a triathlete. She probably has some routines she missed. I'm positive she neglected a great deal of stretching. I'm pretty sure the morning of distraction didn't help her the same way it helped me.

At 7:08am exactly, our wave entered the water and we were off. Instead of freaking out on the swim (as I've, surprisingly, done both times previously, even though I was a competitive swimmer for 10+ years...), I just swam (and at one point I "just swam" head-first into a 60+ year old woman in the Survivor wave that started just before us - oops). I front-crawled 95% of the way - the other 5% being devoted to breast-stroking around people who were hell-bent on kicking me. Even though I can lap JJ's arse in a pool, I was thrilled to have kept up with her in open water - and we exited the reservoir together.

Brighroom has this photo listed as Jess and I on both our profiles. How they got so profoundly off, I'm not sure. Those two are neither Jessica Jantos nor Shannon K. Hurliman, in case you hadn't noticed.

Next up was biking. Jess beat me out of the transition area and probably ran through the bike transition chute faster than me, but I wasn't far behind. I hopped on and pedaled my way through my most favorite part of the tri - biking. There's just something fun about racing a bike on the open road (put me out there in a crowd of bikes and I'd probably pee my pants, however :)

It's really me!

Seeing as I'm still a biking novice (especially by Colorado standards), I still wear my running shoes when biking. Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to throw my platform pedals to the wind and start clipping in. Even without clipping in, I finished my bike 6 minutes faster than last year - and, again, I was right there with Jess. Besides the different in transition times, we were neck-and-neck.

Then came the run.

Apparently I'm enjoying myself.
Funny, 'cuz I don't remember it that way.

Let's clarify something: Just because I enjoy running for exercise and in races, I am by no means a runner. Much like there's a difference between a triathloner and triathlete, there's a difference between one-who-likes-to-run and a real runner. I am one-who-likes to run; Jess is a real-deal runner.

And to that extent, she kicked my tookus in the run. The difference in our triathlon times was a minute or so in transition time and six six six six minutes in the run. That's no easy feat when you're only working with 3.1 miles. But Marathon Mary did it, easy-cheesy.

Regardless of how slow I plodded, I 1) completed the tri (that was iffy for a while!) and 2) took 12 minutes off last year's time on the same course. Woo-hoo!

Done, and in (personal) record time!
I was so happy and/or exhausted that I obviously didn't care that my belly was showing (because I assure you - I really do care now)

Jess finished in a record time for her, too, even with the rocky start.

Jess, finishing with her good friend Taryn, a 10-year breast cancer survivor.

Originally at the finish of the race, Jess thought she hadn't PR'd - and even though she SAID she was okay with it, I know her well enough to know she wasn't. But it didn't matter about the time on the clock - what mattered is that she had been the best bestie ever that day! Without her, there's no way I could've even started the tri, let alone have finished. To me, PR-ing being a bestie meant more than any ticks on the clock.

So....YAY! We finished. And we done good. So all bad omens are off, right? Well, you might think so...but then a large metal pipe that was holding up one side of a banner decided to plummet towards Jess' skull on the walk out to the car. What. The. Heck! We get it, Tri for the Cure - you didn't want us to finish (or maybe even start!) But we did, and we kicked it. Oddly enough, when the beam almost smashed Jess' head, the people walking next to us quipped, "well, if that's the worst thing that happens today...." If they only knew!

Post-race photo op :)

There we are, Besties for the Cure, racin' our booties off in honor of Mimi & Liz (for me) and Laurel & Taryn (for Jess) and all you others out there. I would love to say that we'll compete together next year.....and we might. Maybe, if I can convince JJ to come back and race at altitude after a year at sea level, I might have a chance at beating her! :)