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.

It all started when . . .

I committed to go running with my girlfriends after having my fourth child. I had run before, I have always been athletic. I preferred the sports that involved a ball though, mainly Volleyball, but basketball as well. I ran while playing those sports, and even had coaches at times that for some unknown reason, thought we were runners, and we ran way more than any regular volleyball or basketball team ever did. Now I only wanted to run to get the excess baby weight off. And the ONLY reason I committed to do it was because my girlfriends said we'd talk the whole time. Now, I knew I would not be talking, I'd be huffing and puffing to keep up, but as long as they talked, I could listen, ask the occasional question, and be distracted from the pounding I was putting my body through. And so it began.

That was the summer of 2006. I ran that weight off and actually began to enjoy and look forward to my 6am runs every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. We each had a loop worked out around our homes that was between 5 and 6 miles, and we'd rotate.

Not that I would have called myself a runner at that point, I was just a girl who liked the way the exercise of running made me feel and my body look. I laughed at my girlfriend when she told me she was running a marathon, "Why on earth would you want to do that?" I asked her. I laughed when my running friends asked me if I wanted to sign up for a marathon with them.

But then, as with all of us amateurs, non-running life priorities happened. And so, I got pregnant with our 5th child.  I continued to run until the 24th week of my pregnancy. After my daughter was born in late May, I started again. It was like starting over - the huffing and puffing were back and I was SLOWER than molasses (my favorite homemade cookies call for molasses in them, so I really do know how slow that is.)

I was excited to get the weight off and even began to entertain the idea of a half-marathon (13 miles). When April '09 rolled around my girlfriend somehow convinced me to sign up for the lottery for the St. George Marathon that would be held on October of 2009.  May came around and we found out, we got in. That was a scary and exciting day.

Official training began in early June. The girls I ran with were superstars to say the least, some of them had qualified for the Boston Marathon in the past and they were all fast enough to do it if they wanted to. And so, having them as my only running partners, I set my sights on qualifying also. We trained to do it.