Your turn Eliza

Your Turn, Eliza

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

  Ah-hem. How do you do? I am Eliza Doolittle, sometimes called "the Sleek". I am a blueseventy Sprint triathlon wetsuit, and I am a professional. I do not often speak up, but my ebullient team-mate, Brenda Starr Trek blogged yesterday and insisted that I tell the tale of June 22nd from my own point of view.

Let me tell you, from my perspective, triathlon is no big deal. It is my job. Triathlon wetsuits are trained to protect our humans, providing buoyancy and warmth as they swim in open waters that are sometimes cold and always deeper than the pools that most of them train in.

I am fresh from the factory, but I have been well prepared. I have learned from generations of wetsuits before me what I need to do. Since I was prepared to serve a female, my contours are appropriate, and I am somewhat stylish.

Barb, the human I serve and mentor, packed me with respect, in a large beach towel for the trip up, and hung me with care, so as not to damage my neoprene essence. I rode in a suitcase, and hung in a hotel closet while waiting to just go out and do my job.

I was called upon twice during this weekend. The first time was the practice swim on Saturday. I viewed my job that day as to calm Barb's jitters, and show her just how workmanlike a team we could be on race day.

I must say that the event organizers did a fine job of setting up the practice course to simulate actual race day conditions. They had the swimmers enter the water at the same place they would on race day, swim around buoys similar to the ones that would be in place the next morning, and exit the water at the same place they would as well.

Barb followed my calming directions well for the practice, swimming for about 20 minutes. She then treated me with the appropriate respect and rinsed me off in the hotel shower and gave me room on the bar over the tub to air out and dry in time for Sunday's big event.

On Sunday morning, I was first up. I was carried on Barb's shoulder down to the transition area, where Brenda was waiting. I kept right with Barb as she organized her biking shoes, running gear, hydration packs and nutrition packets around Brenda's tires. I kept reassuring her of how well we had done the day before in practice, and that this would be the start of a great day.

It seemed like she might be pressing the time limits when she finally started to put me on. I should not say, but it takes this Barb person a while to learn: this time she tried using the plastic grocery bag over each foot and hand in slipping me on, not just the body glide that she'd used for the practice swim.

Much easier to get onto her legs and arms that way. But the adjusting and getting fully onto a human body takes cooperation of suit and human. It just takes time. The humans were all muttering and talking as they complained about this process. But it just *does* take time. And it is important to be properly positioned so that the human inside can move freely in the water. I do MY job, Barb has to do HERS.

Then it was time to line up and wait for our place at the start. It was a time trial start, which means they had the swimmers enter the water two by two. When Barb's turn came, she was beside a woman named JoAnn. They wished each other well, sat on the dock, and started.

The actual swim, for me, was very businesslike. I did my job, Barb did hers. Although, I do have to mention, Barb is pretty much blind in the water. She wears prescription glasses, not contacts, and her goggles are STILL not the prescription variety. She got into a rhythm with her strokes, and although she is on the blind end of the spectrum, there were enough other swimmers, and the buoys were HUGE... she could find her target and correct her tendency to drift to the right.

Once, in the water, while Barb was blindly stroking, her hand actually came down on the back of another swimmer. She apologized, and swam on. She expressed amazement that she had managed to pass someone in the water. She knows she is not the fastest swimmer, but this was a confidence builder for her to know that she also was not the slowest that day.

We were out there for 51 minutes and 8 seconds, before climbing out onto the timing mats. The official distance was 1500 meters. This was a very good pace for Barb and set her up to have the time to take me off and get the things done she needed to do to transition to Brenda's leg of the equipment relay they call triathlon. I was left on the ground, folded in a towel, while Brenda went off with Barb on her adventure, which she shared with you yesterday.

As I said from the start: I am a professional. I did my job. I reassured my human that she could do this.

Today, I'm back hanging in Barb's closet, dried off, in dark and cool, on a very wide hanger, to preserve me. She treats me with the respect I deserve, and as long as she maintains her figure, we can be a fine team in these kinds of events.

Now, if you don't mind, I'll go back into the shadows. I don't think this blogging thing is quite my style. Oh, but I will share a photo of Barb and me, from after the warm up on Sunday and shortly before the race start.