Yes, I would like to participate.
No suspense required.
My result at the Westchester Triathlon had earned a slot for the next Escape from Alcatraz race in San Francisco. I finished second in my age group. A month later, the qualification email arrived and asked for a yes or no before the deadline.
Yes.
Escape from Alcatraz was not a race I needed to be talked into. The swim started in San Francisco Bay. The rest of the course climbed through the city. It was strange, hard, and famous enough that entry itself felt like part of the achievement.
The slot was not free. Qualification gave me the right to register and pay for it.
That was fine.
I sent the required information back immediately and then followed up when the registration instructions did not arrive. Earning the slot was exciting. Losing it to an email problem would have been stupid.
I was already preparing for Ironman Cozumel, which was only a month away. The sensible move might have been to finish that race before adding another difficult triathlon to the calendar.
I accepted Alcatraz first.
The Westchester result also gave me a useful signal. Earlier in the year I had finished a sprint with almost no specific training, bad transitions, and a broken pedal. By fall I was racing well enough to take second in my age group and earn another start.
Swimming was still the weakness. I had just taken a technique clinic because I knew it. Alcatraz would make that weakness hard to ignore.
Good.
The email asked a simple question.
I sent the simple answer.