Battle at Midway

Well, BAM was a couple of firsts for me. I had my first DNF and my first experience with Hypothermia. As I was arriving to the race site before the sunrise, I knew it was going to be a cold water swim at about 55 degrees. What I didn't know, was that the air temp by the lake was going to be only about 42 when I came out of the water. I headed into the start of this race optimistic and looking forward to racing a great, hilly and challenging course.

After the start, my face went numb quickly. My arms were stiff, but I worked with what I had and was carrying a strong pace. I was about 1300 meters into the swim, when all of the sudden, I felt something change in me. It was very hard to describe, I panicked a bit and talked my self into "just get yourself to shore and you'll be fine. You'll get on the bike and warm up."

As I exited the water and moved into T1, I felt very cold. My sister who was watching said she became very concerned as I was moving a lot less coordinated than the other athletes. As I got onto the bike, after layering on clothes and socks, I felt very unstable and couldn't get my feet into my shoes. To avoid wrecking, I pulled off to the side, stopped, and struggled to get my feet into my shoes. As I began riding again, I was yelling at myself "Come'on girl! Just ride and you'll warm up! YOU CAN DO THIS!" Shortly I began feeling my entire body shaking on the bike. I began looking for support on the course, knowing I was in trouble and realized there is no support only 2 miles into the bike! I began to slow down because my body was shaking the entire bike and I thought "I'm going to crash." Then I felt a curtain beginning to close, so I got off my bike immediately and leaned over my bike.

The next thing I know, I am wrapped in blankets in some ones car and my body is still shaking like crazy and my teeth are chattering. I guess I kept telling them "I just need to warm up and then I can go back out and finish the race!" The dear couple said to me "Sweetheart, you're not going anywhere!"

I was then taken back to my Hotel by my sister and was put in a hot bath. It took a total of 1:15:00 for my core to rewarm and the shakes to stop. At that point, I fell asleep. I was so exhausted.

I was so completely distraught that the day ended up in a DNF! I kept thinking I was a wimp or something. The longer the recovery took, the reality of what really happened became very apparent. It took me several days before I was not sleeping 12 hours a night and 3 naps a day. Then, when I began training again, my HR was so elevated it was scary. Running at Sea level (I had traveled to IMCDA then to Santa Cruz) at my endurance pace, my HR was averaging 175! It took about 18 days for this to normalize. I'm convinced had I been home in Colorado during this period, I would have been unable to train at all.

I am grateful for many things this day, mainly for the couple that stopped and literally, saved my life. Secondly for my Coach helping me put things in perspective. She said to me, "Trista, you're alive! It's just a dumb race!"