We are all standing in the cold staring at the Red Sea with our untinted goggles and bright yellow bathing caps. The Jordan flag peaks up from the other side of the water and three big red buoys stand between us and the other side. Under each yellow bathing cap is an anxious face awaiting the final and most anticipated triathlon of the season; the race which supersedes all others in its grandeur; the race where you are bewildered by the tropical waters, faced with the intense desert wind, and … well, you have to run too.
My friend turns to me and says – “That’s her – should I introduce you?”. I decided to choose a competitor for this year’s race. I’ve never raced against a particular person. I always raced against myself, but this year I chose one who I deemed worthy. “Yes, introduce me”. She didn’t know it then, but she was being marked as a target. 5,4,3,2,1 and we were off. Very quickly, opponent raced ahead and I thought to myself “Well, that was a short lived dream gone to the sh**ter” but I plowed onward in the water. My swim was disappointing… Even the tropical fish seemed to have a disappointed, wide eyed look on their faces as if to say “You dare swim in our waters at this pace? Have you seen my son, Nemo?”. I quickly shake the thought and somehow finish the swim which gets me off to a bad start and serious disadvantage.
After a quick transition I’m faced with the unforgiving head wind of Kvish Haarava. It’s the Queen K highway of Israel so to speak. Soon, I notice that some women in the age group before me riding nearby and I’m keeping their pace. They may have swum 5 minutes faster than me but I can hold my pace with them on the bike just fine. In the distance I see opponent struggling with the wind. This is my chance to pass her. I creep up and without a word, go past and keep with the girls who were later going to take 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in their respective category. I passed them and they passed me until we were near the turn around point, they were a bit ahead. I had passed opponent but the fight was not over yet. The gap that was formed during the swim has diminished and the goal has changed into creating an even larger gap between us.
Another quick transition and I was at the run. I took my GPS because I wanted to know how fast I was going. This motivated me to keep a good pace and I kept wondering why I had never done this before. Every once and a while, I would see Gisenu (Tamir) on the run but our encounters were brief. We were both short of breath and each faced with our own personal goals.
Triathlons are one of those sports that make you wonder what monkeys think of humans. We think of what monkeys do all the time (at least I do) but how often do they look at us and ponder what we do? The biggest difference between us and monkeys is that we wonder what they are thinking and wonder if they are wondering what we’re thinking but we don’t really know. I can get even more ambiguous if I have more time…
To cut a long story short, I passed opponent by 11 minutes (!!!) and got second in my age group. There was a nice ceremony and I got yet another trophy for the collection. Now back to reality and Ironman training. The very next day we rode up the Israman hills just to top off our race from the previous day.
