Back when I was training for my first triathlon, I read an article about the unwritten laws of the sport. One of them was that in order to call yourself a triathlete, you had to do at least one triathlon a year. I was in danger of not being a triathlete in 2007, but fortunately my Seattle-based buddy Rebecca wouldn't let that happen. She had me signed up for Danskin Seattle as soon as registration opened, which was good because the race sold out within 48 hours.

My focus from September 2006 up to the present has been my bike. When I bought my LeMond Zurich, other athletic interests pretty much fell by the wayside. I just wanted to be cruising through the lovely back roads of the South Bay and Peninsula on my sweet carbon and steel ride. I was training for a century ride in April, but got derailed by my usual combination of tweaked musculo-skeletal structure and virulent viruses. So I re-set my sights on the Solvang's Finest Century for the fall. But that's another story. This is just by way of letting you know that I had done almost no swimming and less running all spring or summer, and suddenly the Danskin was, um, a week away. Oh, crap, I thought.

Further compounding my lack of training, I had been gallivanting in Scotland and Wales with friends and family for two weeks prior to the Danskin. We did a lot of walking and climbing of steep hills and multiple flights of stairs (everything in Edinburgh worth seeing is up at least one steep hill and three flights of stairs), but my running shoes remained un-run-in, and I hadn't seen a pool up close in well over a month. So when I got back, jet-lagged and beset with indigestion, I did at least make two trips to the local swimmery for a couple sessions of drills and freestyle.

I have been informed that it is my habit in race reports to provide a catalogue of my pre-race aches and pains, so I suppose I must carry on the tradition. In brief: sore tendons in my right foot; left knee slightly gimpy from a misstep on a ruined castle wall; persistent “snagging” feeling in my right mid-back. Nothing too unusual, though of course I was worried about how the knee and foot would hold up to any sort of running. I decided to prepare by resting the legs rather than testing them with any kind of pavement pounding.

The five days between getting back from the UK and heading up to Seattle had been full of craziness, running around, and getting up at 3:30 in the morning all wide awake and ready to go to work. So once I got to Rebecca's comfy and welcoming home, I spent large chunks of time practicing my repertoire of snores. In between sleeping and napping, we did manage to do a nice meet and greet/book signing with some local triathletes; hit the Danskin Expo; have lunch and dinner with friends from the Weight Watchers triathlon message board (great to see you, Bonnie, Laura, Susan!); and get delightful pedicures. I also adapted the fit of my borrowed bike as best I could, given that the bolt that adjusts the handlebar height was corroded.

The bike was a banana-yellow Kestrel with purple graphics that until last year was the race machine of local tri legend and coach Patty Swedberg. She's about my height but a lot thinner and a lot more flexible, so when I was down in the aerobars, my knees were bumping my pendulous belly. The bike itself was feather-light and insanely fast, though, so I thought I’d be OK on it for 12 miles.

Heading into the transition area the day before the race, I was accosted by a volunteer who yelled, "Hey, whose bike is that? That's Patty Swedberg's bike!" Fortunately he accepted my explanation that the speed machine was legitimately borrowed. We got our bikes in place on the crowded racks, taped plastic bags over the seats in case of rain, and headed out for the pre-race dinner at a charming brewpub in West Seattle. On the way back from dinner it started to rain.

When we woke up at 4:30 to head out for the start, it was still raining. Rebecca loaned me one of her husband's rain jackets and we grabbed a bunch more plastic bags and drove out into the dark, wet morning, sipping smoothies as our pre-race meal. "What the hell were we thinking?" we asked each other a couple of times. We found parking in the neighborhood, skirting the watchful cops who were trying to keep everyone out. The rain wasn't heavy, so I felt pretty calm about the whole thing. After all, we were about to get very wet in Lake Washington. I was a bit concerned about the bike leg, with 5,000 women out on wet roads. I absolutely love that Danskin is so encouraging to beginning triathletes, but it can be a little scary to have thousands of inexperienced bike riders out there, and wet pavement makes that proposition even scarier. Plus the yellow Kestrel was new to me and a little bit of a squirrelly ride. But no worries, right? I just decided to be mellower than I usually am on the bike.

After puttering around with my setup, getting my bike stuff covered with one plastic bag, and my run stuff covered with another, visiting the portapotties, trying to get the Kestrel's balky front inner tube valve extender to engage, it was all of a sudden time for my swim start. Whoa! I jogged down to the water and took my place with my pink-capped sisters, feeling my belly gurgle in a way that doesn't usually happen on race mornings. I looked back frantically at the portapotties, but our wave start was only four minutes away, and I knew there was no way. I mentally and physically clamped everything in, and gazed up at the grey sky, which was only slightly drizzling now. "You look calm," said the woman next to me. "Are you calm?" "Well, actually, I was wondering if I had time to visit the potty again," I admitted. She laughed. But I was calm. And I was happy. I was about to be a triathlete again after almost a year's hiatus.

Rebecca's wave took off, and our wave was escorted down to the water. I hadn’t had time even to dip my toe in Lake Washington, so I was pleased to find the water cool, but not freezing. Sally Edwards gave us her usual enthusiastic cheerleading session, and then the swim volunteers raised the foam noodles that served as our starting gate. I plunged in and started swimming. It felt familiar and natural, though not necessarily easy. Fortunately Danskin had shortened the swim course to 604 meters (no, I don't know why the extra four meters), and I had already decided not to go out hard. The first turn was only about 50 meters from the start, and when I rounded the first buoy, I raised my head to sight on the next one. Dang! My amber-tinted goggles had turned all the pink swim caps orange, so I couldn't see the orange buoy among the bobbing orange heads. Finally I got a glimpse of the buoy, lined it up with a notch in the horizon, and put my head back down. I concentrated on keeping my body level, rotating it symmetrically to each side, and taking long strokes. I wouldn't say I sped through the swim, but it didn't go on too terribly long. I felt pretty fresh as I jogged back to the bikes. The crowd at Danskin is incredible, even on a rainy morning, and their cheers energized me even more.

Transition took a while as I had to fish everything out of my plastic bag rather than having it all clearly laid out. Once I was on the road, though, I felt all right. I geared way down and focused on spinning easily for the first mile or so. People were passing me on mountain bikes, but I was ok. I was being mellow. Gradually I picked up speed and started to pass some people myself, and as we approached the steep path up to the I-90 bridge, I was ready to jump on the pedals and power my way up. Then one of the 3,000 or so inexperienced cyclists in the race dropped her chain and swerved to a stop, almost running into me in the process. My mellow vibe was gone in a heartbeat. I barked an expletive and dismounted. There was no way to get back on the bike at that point on the hill, and up ahead everyone seemed to be walking anyway. Even if I could remount and get my momentum back, there was no way through. I grumbled to myself all the way up the ramp, feeling ashamed of myself for being mad at the beginners. The ride across the bridge was excellent, though, even in the rain. I almost never get to ride on an interstate, let alone one that crosses a beautiful lake.

I had to pay close attention to the bike and the other riders every pedal stroke of the way, as the rain hadn't stopped and seemed in fact to be intensifying at times. I abandoned the idea of being mellow and reverted to my usual strategy of bombing the downhills and moving way to the right on the uphills to let all the people I just passed come past me. By the time I hit the tunnel on Mercer Island, my lower back was complaining bitterly about the bike and its geometry, so I was having less fun than I had hoped. After the turnaround, I stopped and stretched for a few moments, sacrificing time for comfort, or at least for the diminution of pain. I eased up on my effort and resigned myself to not making the most of the Kestrel's potential for speed.

The race volunteers made us walk down the ramp on the way back down to Lake Washington Drive, which was probably sensible, though some women’s bike shoes made it harder to walk on the wet pavement than it would have been to ride. The last three miles or so my back felt better and was able to make some good progress vis-à-vis the crowd on the road. Swinging back into transition, I was amazed that I only had the run left.

I was really happy I had skipped socks on the bike because when I pulled them out of my run bag, they were blessedly soft and dry after the squelchiness of my bike shoes. I wrestled the socks on, then the shoes, grabbed my race belt and jogged towards the Run Start sign. Just a few yards past the exit I spotted Patty Swedberg herself. "Your bike's too small for me!" I yelled, "But thanks for the loan!"

Just past the first water station, the steady rain turned into a downpour, washing stinging sweat into my eyes and making it hard to see anything. I took the remnants of my water and flushed my eyes out with it, then raised my arms to cheer along with my fellow runners who were hooting and hollering as the deluge soaked us to the bone. "I love Seattle!!!!" one woman shouted to no one in particular, and we hollered some more. I love running in the pouring rain. It reminds me of being three years old and jumping in puddles even though your mom tells you not to. Plus I was in no danger of overheating or getting sunburned. I settled into a rhythm of jogging for five cones along the course and walking two, though I interrupted the pattern here and there just for the heck of it. Finally I was having the kind of fun I thought I'd be having, and it was mostly because all the other women out there were grinning and laughing and cheering each other on, enjoying the rain as much as the run and each other's company.

My knee twinged a little, and so did my foot, but not enough to slow me down any slower than I was going anyway. I had eschewed a watch for this event, trying to maintain my mellowness, but I guessed I was walking/jogging no faster than 15-minute miles. I ran into Rebecca somewhere before the turnaround - she was already heading down the gentle slope that leads to the big uphill at mile 2.5 - and we shrieked and high-fived. I high-fived other local triathletes that I recognized from last year's and this year's events, and I generally enjoyed myself hugely. Even the big uphill didn't really faze me. I danced as I walked up it, shaking my hips to the beat of the drummers at the base of the hill. A few yards of recovery at the top and I was jogging downhill to the finish. Hundreds of spectators lined the barriers for the last quarter-mile, and I made it a point to grin and wave because I was actually rather proud of myself. I was about to finish a triathlon with almost no training in two of the three disciplines.

I don't recommend this approach if you care about your times, or if you don't have a base level of experience and fitness that comes from training and racing for a pretty long time. It really is better to prepare for races and to train consistently week in and week out, even if it-s not as much time as you'd like to devote. But I was pleased to see that my eight years of regular workouts had paid the dividend of being able to complete a sprint tri pretty comfortably, pretty much off the couch.

I managed a little leap into the air as I crossed the finish line, and my calf only cramped a little as I landed. I grabbed a bottle of water and made myself drink it, though I have never felt less in need of a drink at the end of a race. I swear I was wetter crossing that finish line than I had been getting out of Lake Washington. It was kind of nice having all the sweat and salt washed off me. Usually at the end of a race dogs are flocking around me to lick my salt-encrusted skin. I didn't see Rebecca anywhere so I hurried back to the bikes to see if she was waiting for me and to put on a somewhat dry shirt and my damp windbreaker. Eventually she showed back up and we hightailed it for the car, not waiting to cheer on this year's final finisher. If you ever compete in or watch a Danskin tri, do try and stick around for that moment - it's inspiring, tear-jerking, and totally worthwhile. But we were just too darn wet and chilly to do anything but bolt for hot showers, hot chocolate, and dry clothes.

"It never rains here in August," everyone kept telling me. "Especially not like this!" Sure, Seattle-ites, sure. I love you anyway.