A Triathlete Easter

a special sneak peak:

HAPPY EASTER!

I hate swimming in the ocean!

Let me rephrase that. I love the actual swimming aspect, I hate the potential death by large fish swallowing / severing / suffocating / stinging / surfers –the 5 “s”s of ocean swimming modes of potential death. I do tell myself that if the surfers have been sitting there for a while, dangling themselves above the water at the big man eating fish below, and none of them have been eaten yet, why would that fish want me in particular? However, people fish off of the pier. They wouldn’t stand there all day if there was nothing to catch, would they? Not cool.

Before the ocean swim, Fiance took me to church. Easter really is the point of all religion as it gives us a sense of something more than life so we don’t live it scared poopless of dying.

Therefore, ocean swimming must be the anti-Easter, as it makes me, every second that I’m in there, scared poopless of dying. I had a nice one-sided conversation with God while I was in the ocean today that went something like this:

“I was not meant to die by a hungry fish attack a week before my Ironman, was I? Because that would be a really really mean joke. And I’d like to set the world record for world’s oldest woman---or just get to 100 years. So please tell me death by fish in one of the younger triathlon age groups is not in the cards for me. Thank you, I love you. Happy Easter, Love Me.”

Fiance started an "every three minutes, wait for me" schedule, which I appreciated. We swam out to the end of the pier, then north, then at 15 minutes, turned around to swim back at the pier. Fine. I saw fish underneath me. Not fine. And shadows. Then when we regrouped at the end of the pier.

I looked for the surfers so I could swim in a way to avoid getting bashed in the head by one like our friends had done last year. There were no surfers.

Where the heck did they all go!? Did they know something I didn’t?

“THERE’S A F^*#ING SEA OTTER IN OUR WAY!”

Holy s*&t! (I cuss a lot when I’m scared. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel better.) That giant mound sunning directly in my exit path is NOT seaweed.

“It’s ok, swim in next to me.” Says Fiance-hero.

He swims closest to the ginormous man-eating animal, I swim next to him. All the way in.

Then on the beach: “That was a huge sea lion! I wasn’t going to say anything to creep you out. When you first said sea otter, I thought ‘Whatever, they don’t do anything,’ but that thing was way bigger than me.”

Thank you very much for keeping it inside until after we exited the deadly waters of the South Bay.

Another ocean swim accomplished alive. Another Easter calming me down, and letting me know that even if I do get swallowed by a big fish, I will not permanently reside in its belly.

Happy Easter and Training!