Big Creek Olympic Distance Tri: by Alison Guerin

It looks so nice - but........

Location: Des Moines, Iowa. Affectionately referred to by the locals as the 'sixth circle of hell' (7=Omaha, who knew?)

Seems nice enough, I get there early this morning, beautiful state park bordering a very pretty lake. I set up my stuff & check out the beach. Am a little distressed about the unusually large quantities of feces on the beach - large green modern-artish piles of excrement - a little disconcerting, but I figure I can work around it. Water very green and not-at-all see through, also a little disconcerting. Read the many signs (in large letters) warning sternly about the lasting health implications of the gack floating in the water - the Des Moines Health District strongly discourages ingesting any of the "water" - a lot more disconcerting. I head back to my bike to re-fuss with my stuff, warm up, meet people, calm the heck down. Encounter a whole bunch of folk talking about the recent algae bloom in the lake and how unpleasant it has made swimming - disconcerting yet again.

Decide that even though the water is warm, I am going to follow the lead of ALL the locals and wear my wetsuit. By this point, if it isn't already painfully clear, I do not want any of that dreck touching my skin - neither do the locals, so I figure - when in Rome... One of the local gals was talking about having to backstroke through the slime, but that's another story for another day.

Pre-race briefing on the beach at 7:35. First wave scheduled to start at 8:00. What the heck, everybody was there, so they started the first wave at 7:40 - Gack!

My wave starts, the 'water' actually wasn't so bad close to the shore, but the deeper it got the weirder it got, and regardless of the health department warnings, I wound up ingesting surprisingly large quantities of 'water,' (more on this later). I should NOT have been in my wetsuit because, regardless of gack levels, the water was way too warm to be swimming in a wetsuit. I got so hot that fears aside, I wound up pumping water through the suit in an attempt to cool off. By the time I finished the swim - in my inimitable backwards swimming style - I was worn out. (Swim time: 50 mins)

Hit the beach, jump on the bike, have a great ride. Halfway through, the sun came out and it started to warm up even more, but the headwind made it pleasant. My nose is running, I'm thinking it's a pretty bad time for my allergies to flare up, a fellow racer points out that I'm actually leaking lake slime. OMG! Apparently everybody does it, it's just a fact of life. But seriously, I mean really, are you serious? Any activity that involves leaking green slime has to be fully reconsidered and remeasured. Honestly. (Bike time: 1.5 hours)

I churn through the bike, make up some of my abysmal swim time, transition to the run with a smile/grimace, and attempt to manage my slime leakage problem, (which doesn't appear to be letting up) needless to say, I won't be buying those pictures. Temperature goes up, headwind stops, tummy starts churning. As it turns out, lake slime also upsets your stomach! I accomplish the run, which was really more like a slimy, upset stomach, fast walk, with some slow walking when the stomach got really bad. Finished. (Run time 1 hour + a lot).

Well, they won't be holding a spot on the Olympic team for me this year. But, I did learn some valuable lessons. 1. Don't swim in poop water, no matter how much fun it may appear to be on the front end. 2. If you DO swim in poop water, keep your mouth shut. 3. If you wind up ingesting said water, cut your losses and go for a lie down in the rental car. 4. When you forget how heinous it was, you may just want to do it again.

What the hell is wrong with me?