We’ve all been there before…a time when we were total
newbies without a clue as to what this whole triathlon thing was all
about. When we didn’t know the
difference between a low end road bike and a high end tri bike (other than the
ridiculous price tag on the latter), when we couldn’t tell you what RPE, OWS,
or Z 1-5 stood for, and when we had no idea what periodization, base work, or
speed work was. There’s a lot that can be gleaned from those beginning days, so
here is a look back at where it all started for me.
I played team sports all through
high school and a little bit in college, but after that was all over, I needed
a competitive outlet so I picked up the sport that my parents had long been
involved in…running. A few years later, I saw an advertisement for the Santa
Rosa Island Triathlon and thought it sounded like a pretty cool challenge.
Despite the fact that I had never swam more than taking a few lessons when I
was little and splashing around in the pool or at the beach and the fact that I
didn’t own a bike, I signed up.
First task
was to get a bike so my husband and I headed over to the bike shop and picked
one out. I got a Trek hybrid bike and couldn’t believe that I paid $400 for a
bike J! Now all I had to do was work up to riding 12
miles (it was a shorter course that year). My biggest concern was whether or
not I could sit on a bike seat for that long which looking back now is so funny
cause that seat was HUGE. I remember
exploring my neighborhood and eventually working up the courage to go out onto
the real roads.
When I
started looking for a place to swim, I was excited when I realized that the
University of West Florida, where I was taking classes, had one of the best in
the area and I had free access to it. I had no idea what I was doing and I
would just swim back and forth as many times as I could and hope that I could
do more the next time.
Running of
course came naturally, but running after riding a bike, whoa that was weird. My
legs felt like jelly, I didn’t know how people ran 3 miles after riding their
bikes, it seemed impossible. The more I did it though, the more I got used to
it, or at least I realized that if I made it past a mile my legs felt
semi-normal.
Coming from having been a runner for a few years I was used to being active 4-5 days a week, but I could not believe that people would sometimes do two workouts a day, especially two workouts back to back…these people were crazy. My training wasn’t structured at all, just haphazardly swimming, biking, or running a couple of times a week each. I found out about mere mortals who were meeting at the beach every Sunday to train so I started showing up and it became the highlight of my week.
I learned so much training for that
first triathlon (and even more since). I learned the difference between bike
and tri shorts and that the former are NOT made for swimming in, I learned
(very quickly) that when someone wants to pass you on their bike they yell “on
your left” and then come flying by, I learned that swimming in the ocean wasn’t
as scary as I thought, I learned how to eat and drink while riding my bike, I
learned what T1 and T2 stood for, I leaned that hybrid bikes are not made for
triathlons (and quickly upgraded to a road bike) and most importantly I learned
that I didn’t have to be the fastest out there to have fun. When I finally got to the race, I ended up
finishing dead last in my age group (blame it on the bike J) but I had such a good
time that it barely mattered. That is a lesson that is easy to forget, but as I
approach the very race that started this whole journey off without having been
able to run for the last four weeks due to ITB issues I’m reminded of how lucky
I am just to be able to be out there.
