Duathlon for Dummies

Today I got to participate in my very favorite sport of all time: the duathlon—or, as I like to call it, mostly because I have some twisted objection to calling things by their actual names, the “Duey.”

Take note that I haven’t said I’m good at it—or that I have the slightest idea what I’m doing. All I know is that it feels good, and I do it whenever I can.

Huh. That sounds like something else I partake in, but I can’t think of what it is right now.

Hang on a second. I have to go shave my palms.

There. That’s better.

Anyhow…

I started competing in multisport events six years ago after I had a heart attack. It was my way of giving fate the finger.

“Tried to kill me, huh? Well, watch this.”

One thing I did not add to my repertoire was swimming. As a friend once said, “Most people that think they know how to swim really only know how to keep from drowning.”

She’s right. When I swim, it looks like two crack-addled dolphins having sex near the surface. There’s splashing, frantic grunting, and a general sense that the Coast Guard should be notified.

So, scratch the tri and add the Duey.

This morning was my favorite race of my favorite type of race. Integrity Multisport puts on several top-notch events throughout Central and South Florida: three triathlons in St. Petersburg, one in Key West, and several triathlons and distance-running events in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Key West.

First thing this morning, I was treated to my least favorite part of duathlons. For some reason, the people who organize these events insist on starting them in the middle of the night, as though they’re ashamed to let the general public see what we’re doing in the light of day.

At 4:15, my phone alarm went off with that irritatingly friendly female voice that seems to have no conception of how many people want to shoot her in the face. It’s an almost—but not quite—sultry, seductive whisper that manages to be both alluring and grounds for homicide at the same time.

“Good morning. It’s 4:15.”

“Yeah, no shit, lady.”

She trudged onward, sprinkling unwanted sunshine across my room.

“The weather is clear—”

I reached for the phone and denounced her as the lying weather harpy she was.

I had looked at the forecast the night before, when I didn’t need it narrated to me by a cheerful robot, and there were going to be life-threatening thunderstorms—but only in the St. Petersburg/Fort De Soto area, and only very early in the morning.

You know, exactly when and where I would be running around outdoors and riding a bicycle made primarily of carbon fiber, metal, and poor judgment.

In my hotel room, I was attempting several tasks that were not remotely compatible with one another. I was trying to wrestle myself into a skin-tight tri suit while arranging my nether regions since, like most normal people, I go full commando when I wear cycling kit. If I don’t, the nethermost part of my region looks like an ivory button on a fur coat—and is nearly as comfortable.

Next, I packed my gear bag so that when I reached the transition area—and it was pouring rain because God had suddenly remembered he needed to float an ark or two—I could quickly set out my shoes, helmet, and gloves and let them collect rainwater.

After that came the ancient poop/don’t-poop dilemma.

I know some of you may find this surprising, but if you don’t regularly wake up in the middle of the night to race, your constitution can be very stubborn. Your digestive system has office hours, and 4:30 a.m. is not among them.

The real problem is that once you’re out on the bike—or well into the final run, at about the time you would normally be prying yourself out of bed—your body suddenly comes alive and screams:

“HEY, BUDDY! TIME FOR AN OFFLOAD!”

If you’d rather not ride or run with your butt cheeks clenched tighter than a bull rope around a Brahma, you do the logical thing and try to force one out before leaving for the race.

After ten or fifteen minutes of making the veins in your forehead swell to the size of sewer pipes—and trying not to pass out from the Herculean effort required to evict last night’s power dinner—you surrender, admit defeat, and drive to the venue carrying an unexploded biological device.

I gathered everything, almost forgot my bike, but remembered my extra socks several times. I tossed my gear and tri bag into the car, made sure I had a flashlight for setting everything up in the dark, and headed out.

Integrity tells racers not to arrive at the park before 5:30 because the gate won’t open until then, and all we’ll accomplish is getting in the way of the police and race staff.

Unfortunately, they also say the gate will close again at six.

If you calculate the logistics of funneling several hundred athletes through one gate in thirty minutes, then factor in everyone’s maniacal need to claim a good rack position and arrange their gear before transition closes at 6:50—well, you get the picture.

It’s the evacuation of Dunkirk, except everyone is wearing Lycra and arguing over tire pressure.

As I drove north on Gulf Boulevard, the western horizon blazed with a light that seemed to herald the end of civilization as we currently know it.

I have to admit, the show was mesmerizing. Rips of golden-yellow intercloud lightning blasted through the towering cumulus clouds, illuminating the blown-out sides of the thunderheads and spreading a dizzying array of reflected light across the Gulf of Mexico.

It was the kind of spectacular beauty you might admire during a nighttime artillery barrage being walked steadily toward your position.

That was when I began thinking the two-hour drive home might be more enjoyable if I started it immediately.

I rolled into the queue at Fort De Soto around 5:10 and found myself about fifteen cars back. The light show continued as I opened my weather and Windy apps.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen that deep a shade of magenta on a radar display. I’m not positive, but I thought I saw horns, a forked tongue, and a bifurcated tail in the middle of it.

By then, I was in full-blown “What the hell is the matter with you?” mode.

I could still turn around and leave. It was dark enough that no one would recognize me, so I might avoid public ridicule at the next race.

Then I looked in the rearview mirror.

Cars stretched behind me as far as I could see. If the drive of shame had required passing only two or three vehicles, fine. But I would have to crawl past what appeared to be every person who owned a bicycle on the west coast of Florida.

Hundreds of athletes would watch me slink away like a dog that had just been caught eating a sofa cushion.

I was stuck.

The gate opened at about the same time the sky did. Thunder boomed across the heavens like the opening salvos of the attack on Fort Sumter.

There was no escape now. I was part of a long line of cheap cars carrying extremely expensive bicycles, all snaking toward the location where we would voluntarily begin abusing ourselves.

And not the good kind of self-abuse.

By the time I pulled into a parking space, the rain had tapered off to something less biblical.

The less-prepared athletes—the ones who hadn’t picked up their packets the day before—were performing the multisport walk through the rain to collect their race stickers, rub-on tattoos, and T-shirts.

For the uninitiated, the multisport rain walk is a learned behavior. Normal people move through the rain with their heads bowed and faces scrunched up, as though the water might reconsider and stop before reaching the ground.

Multisport athletes walk through rain exactly as they walk at any other time. If you saw them from a distance, you would swear there wasn’t any inclement weather in the same hemisphere.

They know they’re going to be soaked as soon as the race starts, so they might as well get it over with. It’s the same principle as wetting your pants before being pushed into a swimming pool, except people are less likely to invite you back.

I pulled out my phone to pay for parking through the ParkMobile app and was greeted by a giant, bright-white screen informing me that parking was unavailable at that ungodly hour.

Undaunted, I stepped out into what had become a light drizzle and walked over to the parking kiosk, only to find a large handwritten “OUT OF ORDER” sign taped across it.

Yes, I was beginning to wonder exactly how many soaking-wet red flags had to slap me across the face before I packed up and went home.

As I crossed the parking lot to retrieve LoLa—my Trek Madone SLR 7—an announcement was made that in fifteen minutes, at six o’clock, the parking app would become operational and we could pay then.

Wonderful. Apparently, even the parking system had the good sense not to get up this early.

I collected my timing band as the thunder faded into the distance. Unfortunately, another homicidal thunderstorm was rolling across the Gulf directly toward us, presumably because the first one had radioed back that there were still survivors.

I set up LoLa the same way I always do. I racked her by the back of the saddle on a tri hook. I placed my helmet upside down, straps open and untwisted, with the front facing me, balanced between one handlebar and the bike computer. My cycling shoes went on the left, facing the bike, tongues pulled open and ready for my feet. My second pair of running shoes went on the other side in the same position.

Finally, I tied a red microfiber cooling towel around the rack so I could quickly find my bike when I returned.

Everything was ready.

And that’s when they canceled the swim, Your Honor…

Part Two coming soon.