Triathlon

A few weeks back the kids entered a try-athlon. After they successfully completed it, I vowed that I would tackle one. I'm trying to develop an action habit so I picked a triathlon with a really easy short distance option that was just four weeks later and decided I would enter it if I felt I could complete it. It consisted of a 400 metre swim, 12km bike ride and a 4km run. Three weeks ago I started training by swimming laps for the first time in 17 years. It was as hard as I thought it might be and I really struggled the first week in the water, trying to do front-crawl for 20-30 minutes straight. I kept having to do a few lengths of breast stroke to rest my arms. Thankfully after 3 weeks I was able to swim 1.2km in 30 minutes. At the same time I started jogging, very slowly. I worked up to almost 4km but was concerned about how I would be able to run that far after swimming and biking. My other concern was that I would be using my mountain bike with big knobby tires through the city streets. I tried to find a road bike to use but was unsuccessful.

This triathlon also had a kids event(100m swim, 4km bike, 2km run) and Abby was keen to give it another go. Sam was nursing some sore ribs from a game at school so he sat this one out. Samantha is getting ready for a duathlon in a couple of weeks so played the role of photographer at this one. Abby had a great go and was finished before I had completed my bike leg. I did alright too. I can claim a first place finish in the short distance open division for men - I was the only one in that division! In the end the time didn't matter for me, it was about whether I could finish or not. I was pleased that I was able to jog the entire 4km and still stand up after I crossed the finish line. I am targeting a triathlon in 4 weeks time. I'll have to see how the training goes for this one. We are all doing the Wai Tri duathlon option in two weeks time. It should be fun.