Transition 1: Swim to Bike
While I was on the sand, I continued walking, but once I got to firmer ground I jogged a little, having no clue where to go, but following everyone else. I took off my mask and attempted to take off my swim cap, but my fingers couldn't seem to grab onto the edge of the cap (in retrospect, it was probably because my hands were so cold), so I gave up for the time being and went to work on my wetsuit instead, while still jogging along. Unzipped my wetsuit and pulled it down over my arms, then down low on my hips. I got to a line of people I figured must be the strippers (sorry, apparently the politically correct term is now "peelers"), many of them waved their arms in the air and jumped up and down, so I jogged up and stood in front of the two closest ones, two enthusiastic women. I said "I have no idea what to do.. " and sorta tentatively sat down on the ground, and they grabbed the ankles of my wetsuit and I fell back a bit as they pulled the wetsuit right on off! Efficient. They helped me up, handed me my wetsuit, and told me to go "that way", which was into the sea of swim-to-bike bags.
This is the first incident of me becoming brain damaged when I get near any of my bags. This theme will be repeated.
I ran down the row of bags, kinda hoping that someone would help me. I was trying to figure out my race number, which was written on my arms, but was hard to see on my own arms. I also had a severe case of swim-brain, making it hard to think clearly. I ran past my bag, turned around and started back the other way, and one of the volunteers finally came over and helped me find it, and said to go "that way", which was toward the changing tents.
I made my way down the rows of bags, and figured I'd follow the girl right in front of me. I nearly followed her directly into the men's changing tent, but a volunteer rushed over and pointed us to the correct tent, one further down.
I wasn't planning on changing clothes, so I decided to join the 2 other girls who were transitioning outside the tent, rather than go into the tent where it looked dark and crowded. Since you can't be naked in public according to USAT rules, if I'd actually changed clothes I would have had to go inside. I didn't want to dump my stuff out in the grass and potentially lose something, so I started digging through my bag, picking out my helmet and bike shoes, since I knew I definitely needed those. Oh, I guess at some point I got my swimcap off, but I don't remember when. Put on my helmet and put my handtowel down on the ground to start drying off my feet and getting the dirt and sand off them.
I had put arm warmers in my bag, not knowing whether I'd need them or not, but wanting to have the option. I decided I wanted to wear them, since it was chilly and windy, and dried off my arms with my hand towel (trying to make sure I didn't rub off my race numbers). Then I tried pulling on an arm warmer, and got basically nowhere. My arm warmers are really tight. Also very fashionable and leopard-spotted. Most of the volunteers were inside the tent helping people, but there was one older lady outside, and I asked her if she could help me. We tried together to get my arm warmer on, and didn't really make any more progress than I did alone. It was taking forever, so I said nevermind, I'd just go without, and thanked her for trying.
Realized my feet were VERY cold, and hurriedly put my socks on, trying to straighten them out as much as possible, since I hoped not to change socks for the rest of the day. I kept hearing this noise, and finally I looked up at the girl next to me and said, "Is that your TEETH?" I could hear her teeth chattering, she was so cold.
At that point, a person who I really hoped was a volunteer ran up and crouched down next to my bag on the ground and started digging through it. She held up my sunglasses and said "Do you want these?" and handed them to me. She proceeded to do that with every item in my bag, and put back in the things I didn't need. It was AWESOME. When she held up my armwarmers, I said I did want them, but hadn't had much success putting them on. It became her mission to get them on me, and she did it, quickly and successfully. I stuffed a couple gus in one pocket of my singlet, sports beans in the other, and put on my gloves. My wetsuit, towel, mask and swim cap, and various other items were all scattered about on the ground, and the volunteer said to go go go, and she'd take care of putting everything back in my bag. I wanted to hug her, but I also realized that I'd taken way longer than I should have to get that all done, so I thanked her profusedly and clomp-clomped in my bike shoes through the changing tent.
As I came out the other side, I was attacked by a swarm of white-gooey-handed people. These people had their hands coated in sunscreen, and would viciously attack and apply sunscreen to anyone who requested it, or didn't refuse it fast enough. I had them redo my shoulders, face and lower back, then headed out, following the crowd into the bike area. As I was running in, I saw Matt also running in, and cheered for him and asked him how he was doing. He said he was having bad cramping in the changing tent, and seemed pretty unhappy. I told him I hoped he started feeling better, and fretted as he ran off toward his bike.
(Rows and rows of bikes)
Amazingly, I remembered where my bike was. I took it down off the rack, jogged down to the end of the row, followed the pointing volunteers, and experienced the first of the crazy cheering crowds. I crossed the timing mat and split, and saw my T1 was roughly 10 minutes. Since I'd allotted 15 minutes for my "worst case scenario" times, I wasn't thrilled, but I wasn't upset. I knew a lot of things I could have done differently, and if your first Ironman isn't for learning, I dunno what it's for.