Remember the last kid picked for teams in school? That was me.
Far from chubby or unpopular, I lacked completely in athletic abilities
and it was obvious, even to seven year olds.
As you can imagine, the idea of growing up to be a triathlete was the furthest
thing from my mind.
The furthest thing from my mind yes, but that’s exactly what
happened. One day, like a thunderbolt,
an idea popped into my head: Must. Do. Triathlon. Suddenly, everywhere I looked, there were
triathlon articles, magazine covers, and people talking about it on the radio
and I decided this was something I had to do, even though at the time I could
not swim or run.
Shortly after my first child was born, I signed up for a 10k
run and fell in love with running. A few
years after that it was time to tackle the pool. I had quit swimming lessons as
a child and am generally uncomfortable around water, especially the idea of
putting my face in the water. Eight
weeks after baby number two, I had my first lesson and it was love at first
stroke! Now I had all the components but
where to take it?
In April of 2009 I signed up for my first triathlon, the
Delta Triathlon. Unprepared for the cold
water, I panicked a little until the lifeguards kindly helped me out and the
rest of the race went perfectly-I was now totally hooked and looking for
more. A friend and I signed up for the
Langley Tri where the swim went well but I tripped over my bike coming out of
T2 and bloodied my knees. Couldn’t get
worse right? Wrong. During the bike, my
chain came off multiple times, leaving me reliant on other racers to help. Embarrassing!
Over the years I contemplated joining up with Team in
Training in order to do the Lavaman Triathlon in Kona, an Olympic distance
event that has participants swimming in the clear, warm ocean and cycling along
the Queen K Highway, the same path ridden by the legends of Ironman. I chickened out three times before finally
registering in 2012.
The training certainly wasn’t easy but standing on the shore
waiting to start my 1500m battle with the Pacific was one of the proudest days
of my life because I finally felt like an athlete! The swim went like a dream and so did the
bike -probably because I spent most of saying to myself “Wow, this part of the
Ironman route! I’m practically an
Ironman! Yay me!” Then it was run
time. Excited to get to the finish line,
I started to run. Or rather, tried to
start running but my very tired legs wouldn’t go no matter how hard I
tried. I decided I had no option but to
quit and started looking for a volunteer to help me bow out.
Thankfully, the voice of reason in my head roared to life,
yelling “NO! You have come too far and worked too hard to quit now. 5 miles to go is nothing. Run!”
So I bargained with myself to jog a minute, walk a minute in the 30+
degree heat. Slowly the miles ticked
down until, 51.5 kilometers after I started, I stumbled across the finish line
spent and ecstatic, one minute under my goal time.
I used to think the perfect race was the one where
everything went smoothly and earned the coveted personal best time. In truth, the perfect race is the one where
everything goes wrong, the personal best passes you by and you cross the line,
smiling and saying “That was so awesome, I’m signing up for another as soon as
I get home”.
