Oh Come On!!

Some people dream of double rainbows and puppy dogs. Others have dreams within a dream, and yet others have terrible nightmares. Within this last group there’s a sub-category of people like me who periodically suffer from triathlon nightmares. I’ve experienced this phenomenon for a while. In most cases something goes horrendously wrong, eg being late for the swim start, exploding tir – hold up, that was my last race… my bad. Seriously though, I often have tri-related dreams. At the very least they’re bizarre, and at the worst they’re bona fide night terrors.

Since Ironman 70.3 St. George, these dreams seem to have intensified. A couple nights ago I dreamed I was back at Sand Hollow reservoir. I was so focused on not missing my swim wave, but lo and behold I kept getting distracted. In my dream it was like the rest of my age group was pulling a prank on me. I’d turn my head for a second, then look up and they’d be sneaking down to the water, and I was like “oh come on!!” They’d sheepishly come back to the shore, as if to say "ok, ok you caught us, you caught us," then I’d turn away again and they'd be back to their old tricks. At this point I was like oh hail no, and hustled out to the water. I made it in time, but then things got really weird. The lake transformed into a wide river with a really strong current, almost like I wasn’t swimming at all and just flowing down some rapids. Part of this involved being spun around in a whirlpool and then spit out down one of those curvy, waterpark slides. It was pretty fun… are there any courses like that?

While on the subject of dreams, here are some other recurring ones I can think of… anyone know a good therapist?

Running Late – everything just taking forever in getting to a race. Delay after delay after delay.

Floor Swimming – several times I’ve dreamt that the “swim” portion of a triathlon takes place on, say, a carpeted floor, or sand, and you have to do a swimming motion to make your way across the ground before jumping on your bike. I can just picture myself attempting to freestyle across my mattress in my sleep.

Transition – similar to running late for a race. I’m in T1 and everything just taking forever. I keep forgetting stuff, and sometimes never do get on the bike.

Nature Boy – look down to see I’m sporting my running shoes, racebelt and heart rate monitor, but little else... not even a loin cloth.

 

Weird Courses – usually a run in which part of the course involves going from room to room through someone’s house, up flights of stairs, etc. before heading back out onto roads.

I only remember one sports-related dream with a triumphant outcome. The night before my Ripley County cross country meet as an 8th-grader, I dreamed I won in dominating fashion. In reality, none of the hottest girls in school chanted my name, but I did manage to win the race. Now that I think about it, is this the blueprint? If only I can force myself to dream better, will I start winning races??