Me in 1999 at T1, check out sweet mountian bike!
It had been 10 years between triathlons for me. That is a long time, so I'll fill in some of the background. I ran track in High School (800 m), but mostly just worried about looking cute in my short shorts. I didn't realize until I got to college that all those FAST girls were running on the weekends and not just half-heartedly jogging through practice talking about boys with their friends. You had to practice to be good at sports! I really didn't know that...
SO, I really started to love running in college and I had some friends who ran, too. One day I was in a bookstore and bought a book from the dollar bin. It was called The Triathletes and was about Julie Moss, Paula Newby-Fraser, and Jan Ripple. I don't know why I bought it, except for the fact that it was $1 and I'm a sucker for a bargain, but it changed my life. I thought what they were doing was the coolest thing ever, so hard core, so TOUGH! So, I got a mountain bike for Christmas and did a couple of sprint triathlons. My first was put on by my college and was in reverse order with the swimming in the pool. THEN I started Masters swimming and did a run, swim, run event and another sprint. I really loved it, was NOT good at it, but that did not stop me. What DID stop me was graduating, going to grad school, getting married, getting a job, changing careers, and having a baby. I never stopped exercising, just racing.
A couple of summers ago it got a little easier to have some time to myself and I began to run again. I stopped when the time changed in the winter, but started back last summer with a humbling 5K that I could not finish without walking. That flipped a switch for me and I have been on fire ever since. I called my friend R and asked her if she wanted to do some triathlons again like we did in college. She never really stopped racing, despite doing all those things that stopped me. And she has great hair, too. She is amazing. So, we made big plans and got all excited and now we are training and waiting for summer!
What a great story! That's terrific that you've got a friend to train with.
ReplyDeleteHey, I follow you on Twitter, too, and I saw you ask Kelownagurl about how to get your BT graph to show up. I'm still trying to figure that out, so let me know if you do.