Having a blast! It's that simple.
When I showed up for a Danskin training program I felt out of place. Most of the other trainees were svelte 20-somethings with racing bikes ready to do their stuff. There I was all white-headed with a bicycle loaded down with panniers for grocery shopping.
"Raise your hand if you've ever done the Danskin before," said the trainer.
"Twice," I said after raising my hand. "The first time at age 60. The second time at 65. Now I'm 66."
The first time I did the Danskin, was the most fun of my life. Hoards of young women ran by me calling out, "You're looking great!" Spectators along the roadside shouting out my race number, "Way to go, two-ninety-two!" The cumulative total of all the praise I have ever received in my lifetime wouldn't equal what I received during one Danskin Triathlon: it's probably the most supportive environment on the planet.
This year I signed up 24hours too late. Admission for the Seattle race had filled up the day before. I was devastated. I just couldn't bear to tell the half dozen or so of my women friends at church who trained together last year.
Even though they are all much younger than I am, we were a support group for last year's race: thick and close, a very meaningful shared experience. Nearly all were planning to sign up again this year.
It's the kind of community that happens to one seldom in life. I couldn't bear the thought of being left out.
But the main reason I needed to get in was because it was, in a way, what the doctor had ordered. I had recently contracted polymyalgia rheumatica a sort of "stiff old lady syndrome." This condition can be very painful, debilitating, and incurable.
"The ones who lick this are like you, VERY active," my doctor said.
"How active should I be?" I asked
"Do whatever you planned to do this summer," he said.
"This summer I had planned to take two 500-mile tandem bike trips," I told him. "Then I planned to hike the Enchantments (in the Cascades south of Leavenworth), reportedly the eighth most difficult hike in America. Oh, yes, after that I had planned to do the Danskin Triathlon."
"That's pretty ambitious," he said. "But if you can do all that, you should be well on your way to recovery by the end of summer."
So I emailed Danskin.com to find out if there still was any way to get in, and it turned out the only way was to join the youngster's training program I mentioned above.
The program would cost a tidy, extra sum, but never mind: name the price. I had to get in, and I chalked the training fee up to medical expenses.
Training for the Danskin is almost as fun as the event itself. In fact, if the triathlon didn't show up in my South End neighborhood once a year, I might have never thought of participating in one at all.
When my friend Beth told me she does the Danskin every year, I asked her what it involves.
"You have to swim a half-mile, then bike 12 miles, and jog three miles," she stated.
"I can do that," I said
"Sure, you can," she assured.
So, for the past several years, when the weather warms up in summer, I bike twice a week down to Mount Baker Beach where I meet Beth and we go for a swim. There is no greater feeling of freedom than swimming out across that wide expanse of water whose distant boundaries are marked by the tops of trees, the roofs of houses, and the I-90 bridge.
I train for the jogging on my miniature trampoline at home wearing elastic knee braces and listening to an old Jane Fonda workout audiotape. That's to save my old knees from jogging on the hard pavement until the day of the event.
The only time I get to see women my age who do the Danskin is when we're all bunched together at the starting gate in our pink swim caps at 7 a.m. the day of the race waiting to jump in the water.
I can see them all cowering and shivering a little bit as we listen patiently to the speeches and the national anthem. But that's all right. We know we can do it.
In my three Danskins I have made a point of asking the ages of the oldest ones standing around me.
The oldest this year was 71. It was her first time ever to do a triathlon.
It's never too late to have a blast.
Like to share a thought with Mona Lee? Write her a letter via editor@sdistrictjournal.com.
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