On Your Mark, Get Set, Scale?

Abstract

The first time I entered a triathlon, in 1991, I ended up losing my way during the opening swim, crossing the rope in the lake that divided outgoing from incoming swimmers, and actually swimming head-on into the top swimmers, who were finishing their lap and returning to shore as I was very slowly trying to make my way away from the starting point. I was so humiliated that I quit the race. A year later, I entered the same race and didn’t get lost at the swim start—but I had an enormous panic attack and quit the swim after two minutes. I did the biking and running part anyway, but couldn’t consider myself an official finisher. These were short triathlons (half-mile swim, 15-mile bike, 5K run), and I thought I could handle them based on my background as a 10K and half-marathon runner, but I was wrong.