Lake Tahoe Triathlon

10616114_10153054568029186_611284875440153109_n

Event: Lake Tahoe Triathlon

Races: 1.2-mile, 2.4-mile Lake Tahoe Swim on Saturday and Half-Triathlon on Sunday

Friday night we reached campsite at around 10:30PM and by the time we went to sleep it was mid-night. I had signed up for the 1.2-mile swim and I didn’t have a good feeling about it from the get going. Quality of sleep directly affects my ability to function at my fullest. And my bad luck that night, I had a very poor sleep. I should say I barely slept.

The entire gang had signed for swim on Saturday. We got there on time and did a good warm-up swim. In my previous event at Tri Santa Cruz I had goggle issues. So, to make sure, I did enough swim to adjust my goggle to the right tightness.

IMG_5581

 

As usual I made sure that I started as the last person. I wish I had taken my underwater camera with me. The water was so crystal clear that it was just beautiful to see the bottom of the lake.

This is my third time in Lake Tahoe and the last two attempts at swim practice, I struggled with breathing. However, at the warm-up I was just fine. So, I thought I will be fine this time. As I started towards the first buoy, I started feeling that I had no power in my entire body. My arms felt like noodles and only the wet-suit was dragging me towards the buoy.

I started hyper ventilating, and the nervousness kicked-in, making breathing really difficult. I stopped and held on to the kayak for a good 5-mins. I felt a bit calmer and started again. I went about half way through the 2nd buoy and it started again. This time I was not really nervous but I had real difficulty taking a normal breath. I stopped again. Since I was the last person, the Kayak guy stuck around with me. I tried holding on to the boat again to calm down.

But, this time, I had no hope of finishing the swim. So, I made the decision to drop out.

One other thing that went wrong: The swim cap was so tight that my head started pounding. Those caps are not at all designed for big heads or women with thick hair. I usually wear a long-hair cap. Regular size ones don’t work for me. (But I figured out a solution for this. Read my post on Oakland Triathlon).

While, I got dropped off at the shore, rest of the gang pushed on and had an awesome swim. I went to the swim finish line to cheer on for the finishers.

What better way to make Team Asha’s presence stronger at the event than three podium finishes ?!

  • Mouli at 2nd place for non-wetsuit category.
  • Praveen at 1st place for age group
  • Abhijit at 1st place for age group

Over all, we had a successful Saturday. I must admit that I was excited about the beautiful pink technical t-shirt Big Blue Adventures  gave for a $50 swim event.  :-)

IMG_0014

 

We ended the day with campfire, Kavya and Vyas singing, tons of food, wine and loads of laughter !!!

Sunday:

Raghu, Venki, Prakash, Amit, Karen and Praveen were racing on Sunday.

IMG_0020

First Chakri and I had signed up for volunteering. They were in desperate need for volunteers and we recruited rest of the Team Asha gang to volunteer.

Started with Body Marking and ended with water stop for bikers.

IMG_0041

We had so much fun volunteering, competing with each other on who gives out the most number of water bottles.

Abhijit claims to have won !!!

And we all got $50 off for future event with Big Blue Adventures for volunteering besides the t-shirts.

Plus, it’s a great way to give personal attention to friends too.

Congratulations to Prakash on his first Half-triathlon !!!