The Tale of the Newbies at the 2007 Jailbreak Triathlon
By Pamela Sue Keller, Pulaski TN
After a particularly awesome finish for the both of us at the Pulaski Monster Triathlon in July of 2007 ( she with a 1st place win, me…still living!), we heard Duane Leach mention the Jailbreak Tri in Columbia as he picked up his award. High on endorphins, right away Adele and I, champion old lady athletes, knew we wanted to try that race. We itched for a new challenge. Adele had a mountain bike and legs like sexy, freckled iron pipes so she would do the bike part of the relay. I’d be in the front of the canoe since I’d done that before and was the weaker of the two of us. I would also run because my legs are longer and so should be faster (but in truth are just longer).
We tried to recruit our friend, Linda to enter the race. Her son Clay , a personal trainer in Cool Springs, was competing in the event. She was going to be at the race anyway so we saw no reason why she shouldn’t compete. She enumerated countless reasons, of course, from having no relay partner to having no interest. All she would agree to was being our ‘in case of emergency’ contact and a cheerleader for us.
I signed up for Adele and I online. I called Adele who was eager and excited as I asked her all the pertinent information. She also kept interrupting with our race strategy.
Me, “What’s your email address?”
Adele, “We need to practice at least once at that park where the race is held. I think I can find it. I’ll drive.
Me, “What’s your email address?”
Adele, “We need to canoe. Do you have a canoe? I grew up on the lake but I haven’t canoed in a long time. Since I was a kid. But with all the weight training Clay has us doing, we should be strong paddlers!”
Adele was psyched for the race!
Me, “What sort of biker are you? Semi-pro? The kind that has won regional events? The kind that …”
Adele, “What? What are you talking about? Are you kidding?”
Me, “ No, this is how they will place us in the race, like when we have to put our swim times on Active.com ( Adele always has an uber-fast swim time) So are you the kind that will stay on the bike on the hills but might get off instead of jumping over logs?”
Adele, “I won’t jump a log !”
Me, “Or the kind that will be slow. Do you want to be put with the slow beginners?”
Adele, “Oh my gosh! This sounds so serious. Maybe this is more than I can do. Maybe we’re not ready to do this. Okay, we can do this. Put me with the slow people! We have practice soon!”
Linda wanted to go with us to practice. We started with the canoe. I loaded mine into the back of the truck by myself, tossed in a kayak for Linda, tied them on with hay string and fastened my red-orange life jacket to the end as a caution flag. Adele, Linda and I met up on the road and rolled like truckers in a convoy to the little lake near our houses in Giles County. Its a private lake. We didn’t have the nerve to put in without permission so we drove around the lake until Linda saw someone she knew who gave us permission to use the water.
After we found a place in the woods to pee and off loaded the boats, Linda, the expert, took off, cutting through the water like an Eskimo hunting walrus. Adele and I looked more like walrus learning to canoe. We could start out straight but if Adele tried to talk to Linda, our canoe mysteriously veered toward Linda. If Adele looked at houses along the lake, our canoe went to the lake shore. When Adele focused on the task, the canoe plowed ahead like it had a motor. We discussed how deep to place our paddles, which side we should each paddle on, how many strokes we should make on our side before we switched sides, and how to use the back paddle as a rudder. Eventually we were confident enough to challenge Linda to a race across the lake.
We began neck and neck but soon Adele taunted Linda and Linda wisecracked back and our canoe began to turn to the left until we were paddling, first in a circle and then in the opposite direction. Linda went on without us. A little rudder, a lot of laughing from Linda and we were finally moving toward the finish line again with Linda in the lead. We paddled across the lake one last time for good measure, then Adele and Linda were off on a bike ride while I went to work.
Later, the week before the race, we packed up in Adele’s truck and drove to Chickasaw Trace Park. Adele was torn up on the ride there, partly excited and partly nervous. She talked strategy the whole way to Columbia. Once at the park, we found the parking area and then decided to pee (remember: we are OLD. In our defense, Linda and I didn’t really have to go). Adele drove cross country fast to the facilities, parked on the curb, ran in, ran out, drove back to the parking area and unloaded her bike.
Linda and I ran the trail while Adele took off riding. It was early in the morning, not quite hot yet. There was one other guy biking the trail. He passed us about four times while we ran the 2.5 miles. Afterward, Linda and I decided to walk the trails. We got lost. Every so often we thought we saw the field where our car was parked but it never was the correct field. We walked over an hour. It’s a pretty park. Finally, we decided to backtrack and Linda found our way out. Just at the moment we entered the field where the car was parked, Adele called my cell phone.
Me, “Are you crying?”
Adele, “It was the hardest, scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Don’t tell my husband how dangerous this is because he won’t let me do it. It was REALLY dangerous. I saw a snake. A big black snake on the bike path. I had to get off my bike and I started hyperventilating. There was a big turtle in the bike path that hissed at me when I rode by. I’d rather ride 100 miles on my rode bike than ride that trail again.”
By the time we met up at the truck, Adele was shaking but feeling better, rather victorious. She was talking to another guy who was getting ready to ride about, what else, race strategy.
Later in the week, while I was thinking that Adele might not want to race, I received an email from Duane Leach telling me that my partner had not entered the race yet. We must go to the ‘delinquent partner registration’ web site and sign up again. I thought I’d signed Adele but I had not. She had the perfect excuse NOT to race, because of my error. I called her.
Me, “We have to re-register. What’s your email address?”
Adele, “I’ve talked to Clay and he said I’d get 5 minutes faster every time I rode that trail.”
Adele was still psyched for the race!
Me, “What sort of biker are you? Semi-pro? The kind that has won regional events? The kind that …”
Adele, “Are you kidding? Put me with the slow people.”
Linda volunteered to drive on race day and packed beer for post-race de-stressing. We arrived at the venue early, figured out where to lay down the bike in the transition area then spent the time while waiting for the bus ride to the race start alternating hydration and peeing.
Adele likes to narrate what she’s thinking and doing when she’s nervous so she chatted to other racer about race strategy while Linda teased us frequently about her calmness relative to our anxiety.
“I’m going to eat and drink and relax and have fun watching everybody, she said more than once.”
There was the jovial van ride to the canoe put-in and then the hunt for our canoe. Adele was amazed by the commitment the volunteers made to the event, even to the point of dressing up LIKE REAL PRISONERS in cute little stripped suits! But wait! Those tattoos on their faces and arms! THEY WERE REAL PRISONERS!
Down at the riverside, someone with a megaphone was calling the name of Linda’s son, Clay. Already at the starting rope, Clay and his teammate, Wade, were in the wrong canoe. If it would have happened to Adele and I, there would have been peals of laughter amongst the other racers but Clay and his partner looked like winners, and sort of tough winners at that. Nobody teased them as they switched canoes.
Those guys going out in the first two waves at the mass start were really competitive. As the horn started the race they grabbed for each others canoes and tried to shove them backward to benefit from the forward momentum. When it was our turn to go to the starting rope, everyone in our starting flight became super polite, ‘you first, you look like you really want to go ahead of me, go on!’ It sort of got to Adele’s competitive side when two teenage boys pulled up alongside us. She let them know that we weren’t just wielding canoe paddles but lethal weapons that could severe a hand should they try to push us back at the start. She was kidding, I think.
When the horn blew, several of the polite racers went sideways, one tipped over and one went up on the bank almost entirely out of the water so Adele and I felt lucky to be moving forward, especially since the canoe’s were sandwiched so closely together we could barely get our paddles to the water.
They had warned us about trouble at a bridge where the river narrowed and we would have to make a hard left but neither Adele or I ever noticed it. It was just us and the water. We just focused on breathing, paddling and trying to go forward, never sideways. We paddled as hard as we could the entire way. Once, Adele spoke to someone and our canoe drifted toward them. Another time, someone lost a paddle and we were heading for it. It looked like we might lose time because our religion would demand that we help others but someone grabbed the paddle before us and we didn’t have to grapple with any moral issues while we raced.
We had no earthly idea how far the canoe portion of the race would be, only that it would last a little over 40 minutes. Neither of us could take the time to look at a wrist watch. When we did get to the end of the canoe ride, it was a surprise! Linda was down at the river with the REAL PRISONERS, pulling out canoes. Adele took off for her bike and I tried to get the feeling back in my arms while I hydrated and sucked a goo ( Adele sucked her goo on the ride).
This next portion of our story is shrouded in mystery since what happens on the bike trail stays on the bike trail. Legend has it that Adele fell three times and stopped ON THE TRAIL ITSELF to pee. Linda and I saw her topple over right before she tagged me for the relay so I know for a fact she fell once and it wasn’t pretty. Once tagged, I took off jogging. I could here them yelling, “run faster!” as I left.
Into my first turn, a girl was squatting to pee and apologizing to everyone who came running by. The guy behind me (yes a GUY was BEHIND me!!! I’m that fast!! ) told the pee-er, “I’ve seen worse”. It was a comment worth wondering about for the rest of the race. He’s seen worse what???
There was a small hill, nothing I couldn’t handle, and a face full of pollen before I exited the wooded area running into the twisty little finish in the clearing. I could hear my friends rooting for me so I made terrible faces (as evidenced in the horrible pictures taken of me) and ran as fast as I could.
Afterward, we all drank and ate and were merry. Adele was first in line when times were posted and shouted the news to the rest of us. Us old women won 4th in our relay!!! Clay and his partner placed, as well. Adele and I were called up to the front to get our cute little trophy. Duane Leach hugged us! (We were special. He didn’t hug Clay when he received his trophy!) Adele and I danced around like village idiots. Linda wondered out loud who might race with her next year. Life was good.
