Look Mom, I Dressed Myself!

I meant to post this a few weeks ago, but alas, was derailed by the bike debacle.

As many of you know, I purchased a wetsuit. After calculating how much it would cost me to rent my wetsuit each time I wanted to train, and the how long it would take me to wait in line to rent one for the actual triathlon (the woman at the store informed me that the Monday before the triathlon, the line stretches around the block before the store even opens with people waiting to get their wetsuits, and they run out. Uh yeah. That Monday also happens to be my birthday, and I need to spend the morning of my birthday waiting in line for a wetsuit that might not even materialize like I need a hole in the head).

My wetsuit arrived. I excitedly tried it on, ran around my apartment and posed in my most ferocious triathlete pose in front of the mirror. I hate to say it, but I looked badass. I had trained with a wetsuit before, but something about this one being my own made me love it. Yeah, that’s right, I own a wetsuit. Want to go swimming tonight after work? Oh hey, just let me stop by home and get my wetsuit. Awesome.

Normally I train after work, but the past few weeks I’ve been trying to get my training in before I start my day. There’s something so peaceful about running or biking along the Chicago lakefront when there’s not a million tourists on those bike car things or segways or athletes trying to run me down. So this morning I decided to brave the cold and join the other crazies at the beach and get my swim in before work.

Let's just take this opportunity to explain for those of you who have never been to or in Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan is cold. Very cold. In the dead of summer in the middle of the day, Lake Michigan is never a comfortable ocean-like temperature. Even with the wetsuit, you’re in a constant state of chill, and it usually takes me a few hours to be able to feel my hands, feet or face again.

I swam a little more than half a mile before I needed to go home to get ready for work. I made my way back to the beach and removed my swim cap and goggles. Like the other badass athletes, I stood on the water’s edge reveling in the moment. The sun had finally fully risen, and was just over the horizon, a blinding fiery red-orange. It was beautiful. My feet were so frozen that I almost couldn’t feel the water gently lapping against my legs. I sighed and reached behind to unzip my wetsuit.

The zipper wouldn't budge. I tugged harder. It still wouldn't move. I began to look around frantically to see if anyone else was noticing my plight. I started imagining myself having to bike back to my apartment and proudly walk through the lobby of my apartment, head held high, wearing a wetsuit. I pulled on the zipper harder, trying to unstick it. No luck.

That’s when I realized something. My wetsuit, this piece of modern engineering, was on. Inside out.

You know at the end of The Usual Suspects or The Sixth Sense when the big story twist is revealed, and suddenly there’s a montage of all of the scenes/clues that you, the stupid viewer, missed and yet should have caught? I suddenly had one of those moments:

Scene 1: Our heroine notices that the logo on the chest of her wetsuit is upside down. Hmm, she thinks. That’s strange – they put it on the wetsuit so if I look down at it while I’m swimming, I see it right-side up.

Scene 2: Our slightly befuddled heroine notices that there’s no Velcro patch on the back of the wetsuit to secure the zipper pull (most wetsuits have these) so it doesn’t get in the way while swimming. Interesting, she muses: I must have bought the one triathlon wetsuit in the entire world that doesn’t have one.

If you’ve never worn a wetsuit before, then you have some idea of how hard it was for me to shimmy the zipper down from the inside. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then I commend you.