DNC

On my birthday I woke up and headed down to the beach to attempt a triathlon. That doesn't sound like an appealing way to spend your own personal holiday, but it was a gorgeous day and the idea wasn't necessarily to race, but to get a feel for the transitions before the real race at the end of the month. Well, it wasn't going to be a race as long as I beat Garth... but that's another story. But swimming, cycling, and running in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney are certainly not the worst way to spend a day...

In any case, two days prior to the race Georg was hit by a car. This unfortunately left him out of the race. And then Ian became very sick, so he was out. Andy took one look at the course and said 'no.' So at the start only Garth and I were left standing. I had eaten way too much Mexican pork and cervesas the night before, and Garth smelled as if he had attempted a human pickling. Out of five people, not one of us was ready for this! What does this say about us?

Garth and I lined up at the beach and then tore our way through the surf towards Wedding Cake Island, located 750m offshore and easily spotted by the 'icing' that birds have generously coated it with. We were actually clocking along fairly well, considering our condition, when Garth stopped and said "ow." I don't like it when Australians say this. What is "ow" to Garth is akin to "holy !*&@*#& #!*@ my leg is gone" for me. It seems that Garth had entangled himself in a Blue Bottle jellyfish.

During a race it's important to remain calm to save energy. I was not doing this. I watched Garth untangle himself and was more than a little shocked when he told me he was okay and that we should continue. We made it another 100m when my arm starting feeling hot. I stopped swimming and realized that I had just been brushed, but rather the Blue Bottle's tentacle had wrapped around my arm a half dozen times and there were around a hundred blue stingers lodged in my skin. It did not feel good.

Up to this point I had not been stung before, and I was not sure what to do. Garth was 50m away and hadn't yet realized I'd stopped, and I decided I needed to do something right away. So I reached down with my right hand, grabbed the tentacle, and started unwrapping. And one good thing happened: my hand was fine! The stingers can't get through the thicker skin of the hand! This cheered me up a bit. But only a bit. Then Garth asked me if I was allergic to stingers, and my mild cheer was lost. I replied that we would soon find out.

It seems that Garth had now been stung again and his tolerance had been met. My tolerance was more or less met when I saw him get stung, so I was absolutely ready to call the swim off. But we called it off 600m out into the open ocean... and now had to cross through these same waters to get back. I doggy paddled for a few minutes so I could constantly watch the surface, but I'm not sure I was even keeping up with the tide. Reluctantly I put my head down and started paddling... and made it to shore alive! (I was not really in danger of dieing, but the chemicals in my brain certainly wouldn't let me believe this)

We stopped off at the lifeguard station to warn them that there's Blue Bottles out there today. The lifeguards all agreed that Garth's stings were the worst they'd ever seen: he had them on both shoulders, his arms, chest, one nipple, and the left side of his face. But they gave us ice and cheered us up as good Aussie lifeguards can always do. It seems that one woman's husband had been whipped in his hanging parts once, which made myself and even Garth feel a lot better about our condition.

And that's how 4 of my friends, and myself, got a DNC for the first Coogee Bay triathlon.