Onto Triathlons

Now that I had run a marathon I definitely thought I was pretty cool and could do the whole triathlon thing. My husband and I had been mountain biking for several years and I enjoyed that quite a lot. Moving to a road bike shouldn't be an issue, I thought. And after I got over the fear of how ridiculously tiny-thin those wheels were, and began to gain confidence going from the gutter to the pavement, I was sure I could do this thing they call triathlon.

I am an athlete aren't I? And typically better than most at whatever I have ever done athletically. I'm not being cocky, just stating the truth as I see it. (Ha! - that does sound quite cocky doesn't it!) Oh Well - call it what you will. I am more competitive than most, and have always driven myself to be the best I can be at any given thing. I am not a professional anything, so there are obviously many, many, many who are much much better than me at any given sport. But for the average joe, and for a mid 30's mom of 5, I think I can hold my own. 

Yet even with my new found bravado as I entertained the idea of triathlon, I couldn't avoid the fact that I did not know how to swim. I could do what I called the Freestyle, but whether or not it was correct, I had NO IDEA! So I enlisted the help of a girlfriend I played volleyball with; who happened to also be a tri coach (it's always good to have friends in high places). She began, painstakingly I am sure, to coach me in my swimming technique. Slowly, but surely, I came along. I would maybe say at that point I was decent, not great, but decent enough that I knew I could do a sprint triathlon (the shortest distances they have for triathlons). 

All the while I am falling in love with this new sport, my significant other is doing the same. And interestingly enough, he was going through the same process: learning to swim, learning to use a road bike, and for him, even learning to run (as a lifelong soccer player - he has the endurance built in, so the running came very easily for him). The tricky part for him was the fact that he had a triple level spinal fusion in July of 2009.  His recovery from that surgery and subsequent ability to run is nothing short of miraculous. We ran together for the first month or two of his running experience, and then he was already faster than me. Darn testosterone.

We signed up for our first Sprint Triathlon, "Tri the Creek" at the Cherry Creek Reservoir in Colorado. June 5th, 2010.