Sunday, June 05, 2005
スイムだけ
On Saturday evening there was an opening ceremony in Narao’s town hall and I spotted some foreigners as they walked in and sat down. At the time I was busy hassling another different foreigner, a middle-aged American dude who lives in Sasebo and did this triathlon last year too. He seemed integrated into Japan, disturbingly nonchalant about the coolness of being IN NARAO!!
Um, hello. Foreigner on my island. I feel like a dog marking her territory—where are you from, why are you here, when are you LEAVING? But I’m not asking the “When are you leaving?” question because I want them to leave, it’s because I want them to stay longer!
And the three gaijin I mentioned before I managed to track down after the ceremony like a hound dog who caught a scent. They were Mike, Dave and Luis from Fukue (the largest Goto island down south). They were planning on staying in the town hall in sleeping bags, but I offered up my place immediately and managed to get three guests for the night! The most men I’ve ever had in my apartment in one night! Until their stay I thought I missed having testosterone around. I don’t miss it as much as I thought. I’ve not had that much beer consumed, farts emitted and poops flushed down my toilet in a long ti… ever. It was great.
So they stayed Saturday night and we all left for Takaitabi beach the next morning together. After partaking in my great American cereal breakfast first!!!
Oh, quick pictures from the enkai I went to with Asagami-sensei on Saturday night. I sat next to Asagami and Yasuhiro (IMPORTANT—REMEMBER HIM!!!) and was quite pleased with my Japanese performance for the evening. I carried on a very long conversation with Yasuhiro entirely in Japanese. So let me toot my horn for a bit. He’s a professional tri-athlete and is sponsored by a cake shop!! Yum! I asked if he gets to eat all the cake he wants, but I guess as a real athlete he doesn’t want that much. That’d be a dangerous sponsorship for me!!!
So, you don’t know any of these people (neither do I, but this is the atmosphere…)
This picture of the food is for my sister.
[Fast forward to Sunday morning—Day of the race!]
I feel like my motto for the race should be “スイムだけ!” (Swim only!) because everyone seems so impressed with what I did and I’m thinking, “All I did was swim 2K.” There were tons of people who actually exerted some real energy and did THE WHOLE THING! Perhaps considering in January I couldn’t swim more than 2 laps without keeling over in exhaustion and my form was… well, I didn’t have form I had legs and arm flinging in everywhichway in a desperate attempt to get me forward. Perhaps it IS impressive for me, but in general, 2K isn’t that much for swimmers.
Everyone at Takaitabi Beach. The 10 minute countdown starts!
The “before she realizes what she's gotten herself into” picture with Catherine! I look genki anyway!
Coming out of the water for my first, second lap… I’m not sure. I look tired enough for it to be my second!
"Yeah, I'm gunna lap all these mofos."
The “after she thinks she accomplished something worthy” picture with Catherine and Laura. Dekita!!
And the finish line! It’s a crazy picture—our runner was sprinting down the finish line and Nishijima-san and I couldn’t keep up. I was expecting him to slow down at some point to get a picture at the finish line, but he was gung ho about getting OVER the line before he slowed at all! And then the photographer had to jump out of the way and unfortunately got in my picture too! Craziness I tell you!!!
So we placed 16th overall and 4th among the relay teams. (There were 15-20 relay teams I believe.) 16th out of 100+ sounds good, but then you realize there were 12 INDIVIDUALS who did the whole fucking thing faster than the pitiful three of us! Ouch! And all the credit goes to my biker and runner who had really good times. Oh! Our total time was 4 hours 40 minutes and something-seconds; official times and splits are coming in the mail. I’ve estimated my swim at 47 minutes, but I’ll let you know the exact time when it arrives.
And the distances were:
2K swim (with beach start and each lap you come out of the water as well.)
71K bike by Nishijima-san (Fukuoka)
17K run by Uraguchi-san (Narao)
Here are the Fukue boys who placed, I can’t remember… 9th in relay, 50th overal? Give ‘em some credit though. Luis was misdirected on the bike, went about 10K further than he had to, then was called back and had to backtrack to the right road! He knew he was making the wrong turn (after his second lap) but they blocked off the correct road and told him he had to go thrice! That really sucked!
So their team was: Mike, swim (in 33 minutes, DAMN!) Luis, bike and Dave, run. In the picture from left to right it’s Luis, Dave and Mike on the right.
Three girls came up from Fukue to cheer on their boys. Mike’s wife, Luis’ girlfriend and Rhianon, an ALT on Fukue. Rhianon even made them signs! Fukue’s Finest!!
Mike did the Iron Man Triathlon on Fukue in April so he’s Mike “Ironman” Carter. Luis, is Puerto Rican, but for some reason they call him Mexican so he’s Luis “The Mexican” Negron. Mike is from Canada so he’s Mike “The Park Ranger” Hardy. I'm not sure if there’s more behind the “park ranger” story so it may not even be connected to his nationality.
Here’s Asagami-sensei crossing the finish line with bouquet upon bouquet of flowers! Everyone loves this guy!! He really went over the top to make sure were are all happy, fed, satisfied and didn’t pay a single yen towards beer, food or transportation!
Thank you Asagami-sensei!
Me and Asagami-sensei. He gave me my bike (last year when I still was considering doing the whole thing), my wetsuit, paid for my dinners both nights, paid for my taxi home on Sunday, took me on my practice run in the ocean Saturday. And outside of the triathlon weekend takes me (and my visitors) out to expensive dinners to ryokkans all over the islands—all because he’s a nice guy who likes foreigners. I have so much respect for this man.
Oh! This is the 16th year he’s done this triathlon! Holy shit!
Next posting will include pictures from the enkai that followed Sunday night… where I get to know the top winners and ALL their awesomeness!
Much love,
Sierra
