Season openers are for learning

What we learned on Saturday is that Trophy Wives are fast, snot rockets are slow.

Nicki and I started our most aggressive triathlon season yet with the Appalachian Power Smith Mountain Lake Sprint, during which we navigated through 750 meters of 65-degree open water, a 20K bike and a 5K run. It was the first of five events, which will culminate with the Patriots Half -- a 70.3 (1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike, 13.1-mile run) on September 11.

We appear to be far from peak performance. That is encouraging to each of us, but for different reasons. For Nicki, it means there may be more trophies in her future. For me, it means there will be more oxygen.

The Trophy Wife lived up to her name and won her age group (scroll down to the 25-29s). For those who are counting, that's 13 top-3 finishes or better out of her past 14 competitive events. Her only miss in more than two years? Last month's Charlottesville 10 Miler, where she still set a PR at 1 hour, 19 minutes, 59 seconds.

This win was particularly exciting. Nicki took home hardware regularly during our five years in Mississippi. When we moved to Virginia, we both thought Hey, there are more people up here participating in voluntary suffering, which means there will be more people who excel at it, which means her chances would be diminished. As you can see from the 10 Miler results, our suspicions were confirmed there. So, we didn't get our hopes up on Saturday. But then we saw the initial finishing order, which had her 64th overall out of 500 or so, and we thought it was worth it to hang around for the awards ceremony just in case.

And wait we did. As luck would have it, the race organizers called the podiums of each of the age groups up to Nicki's, then decided to "go deep into the age groups" and call the 70-year-olds and move down. We decided to get comfortable. It took more than an hour.

Once the Female 25-29s arrived, we remained cautious. They called third place. Someone else, but no time called. Bummer. They called second place with no time. I said, "Oh, well. I'm still glad we waited." How lame is that? What kind of husband gives up hope so quickly? Hopefully I made up for it with my reaction, because when the announcer said, "And with a time of 1 hour, 21 minutes ..." he couldn't even finish (although I did hear him mispronounce our hometown) before I started squealing like a little girl. I spun around, punched my fist in the air, called her the Trophy Wife -- loudly. It was a real scene. People were backing away, smiling awkwardly at me. I didn't care. I was so proud.

There's nothing like being married to a fast woman.

Any misery I had been feeling about my day was eased by her success. And I was pretty miserable.

All spring, I have been fighting allergies, which have an uncanny ability to morph into some kind of upper respiratory infection. I thought that I was recovering from my last bout with them nicely until Thursday, when snot began to fill the left side of my face like water fills a torpedoed submarine. I fought feverishness, chills, hiccups and snot that looked like over-concentrated lemon-lime Gatorade most of that night. I quickly got on some allergy meds and some antibiotics that I didn't really take from my last URI problem a few weeks before. I had recovered a bit by Saturday morning, but not nearly enough.

At least not to last me until the run.

I coughed a little during the swim, but still finished faster than my 15-minute goal. However, things started to go downhill for me as I ascended the stairs out of the water and toward the transition area. I didn't lift my left foot high enough, stubbed my toe, and hit the deck (possibly muttering a one-syllable expletive on the way down in front of a large crowd -- imagine that). I got back up and hustled out of my wetsuit and onto the bike.

It was my first race on my new TT bike, and I was very excited to get pedaling. The course had some rolling hills of mild-to-moderate grades and several turns, including two 180-degree turnarounds. It was not a very fast course, and times were generally slower across the board than I expected them to be. But I knew I was in real trouble about 15K into the bike leg when the course took a tough climb before a 90-degree left turn. My legs did not respond to my command to go harder. I had to get out of the saddle and will myself to the top, probably using up my last drops of competitive energy.

When I crossed the dismount line, I was out of breath and out of gas. I caught neither. I also had a rock in my shoe as I started the run, which also sucked. I stopped to remove the small, but irritating pebble, and I seriously thought about removing myself from the event. After all, I had hacked up what appeared to be a solid part of half my right lung just a few strides earlier. I was stuck in a place between honoring my earlier effort and honoring my ailing body. I reached a compromise to shift into survival gear. I may have run the slowest 5K of my entire life (29 minutes? Really?), but Nicki caught me with a tenth of a mile to go. We crossed the line together, which we hadn't done at an event since January 2008.

It should make a nice picture when the race photos are published.

I finished 12th in the Men's 30-34s. But when it comes down to it, my run was the only leg that derailed me. If I had run the 20-minute 5K I'm capable of running, I would have moved into the top six.

Our next event is the Charlottesville Sprint, another 750m swim, 20K bike and 5K run, on June 27. We have two months to work out the kinks we discovered in our early-season form. Nicki wants to learn to swim straighter (she tends to weave in the absence of lane lines). We both want to improve our transition times, which include more efficient -- and risky -- mounts and dismounts of the bicycle. I want to have my respiratory system running at full capacity. These are all things that should lead to even faster times in June and for subsequent months.

For the meantime though, we know that the Trophy Wife is fast. And this snot rocket is reveling in that.