Baby Tri

After the winter break the military community put an advertisement for a Saint Patricks Day Sprint Triathlon.  My friend Tina had completed one in the fall and encouraged me to sign up.  A sprint triathlon is a 300 meter swim, 10K bike, and 5K run.  I hadn't really swam laps since I was a kid. In fact, when I was trying to encourage Katie and Jen to swim laps for exercise in our pool I wanted to show them how easy it was to go up and back- well it actually wasn't.  I knew I could do the bike ride- I spin regularly so how different could it be on the road.  The run was a whole-nother story.  I hadn't run since before I got pregnant except to get a cross a street quickly or maybe the occasional gym day I was feeling really good and did a mile on a treadmill.  I knew this would involve some training so I told my super encouraging friend I'd try and let her know.

I went to the pool and was able to complete the 300 meter but I had to do most of it back stroke.  After a few weeks of swimming I was able to push my freestyle further and further and then one day I got it done easily and swam a few extra laps to be sure.  Swimming - Check.

I have a 3 speed cruiser- great for tooling around Coronado, CA, but not for competitive riding.  I tried out Fred's hybrid bike and thought it would be a breeze, but it turns out riding on hills on the road is a lot tougher than spinning.   My friend April had a road bike she wasn't using so she offered it to me to ride- WOW.  I never knew road bikes basically move without pedaling.  Ok, I would be successful at riding with this bike- Check.
Here is a photo of April and me post-race.

The run was probably going to be hopeless.  I hate running and really don't want to train to do it regularly on any basis.  Tina told me the last triathlon she walked/ran.  Hmmm- I could do that.  Turns out our Wednesday AM walking group actually started adding in some light jogging on and off and after a while I realized I could do this for 3 miles.  Run/Walk- Check.

I finally agreed to do the sprint triathlon with Tina and trust me, she was going to hold me to it.  So Saturday March 15th I completed my first baby tri- "sprint triathlon" is a little misleading for me- there was no sprinting involved in this race. Just completing it was an accomplishment in itself.  In the end it took me  1 hour 15 minutes, and I had the fastest swim for the females.

Here is a picture of Tina and me pre-race.

I was really proud to complete in a competitive event, it had been over 13 years since I did any physical event that earned you a t-shirt! This was the entire group of competitors and the 4 ladies who finished.

I had two friends come out and cheer me on as I finished.  Kate and Emily thanks for your support.

I have to mention though- I have a friend in Vienna, Donya, that completed an Ironman last year.  I knew this was a bid deal.  I saw the Hawaii Ironman on TV with people collapsing and crawling to finish the run.  How anyone could swim, bike, & run for an entire day, it seemed beyond reason.  As I was swimming my measly 300 meters I kept thinking how Donya did this for 2.4 miles! First off, how did she not die from sore shoulders blew me away, but also how she survived the boredom of all that training.  I knew it was an unbelievable accomplishment but now I have an even greater understanding of how awesome those athletes are. Kudos to you Donya!