I've always been a little bit overweight but have always been a very active person. I guess you could say that I'm that guy that wonders how all the skinny guys are skinny because I eat the same and work out just as much to get no results. Mountain biking is, and has always been my go-to sport and passion. Downhill, trails, park, streets, even a little bit of road. If it has two wheels, I'm in.
So a few years ago, after leaving my little home town and moving to the big city of Edmonton, with a beautiful river valley trail network, I decided to expand my fitness to include running. My wife and I would have goals to complete little 5K fun races like "color me rad" and "mud hero." The problem is that once you can do 5K, then what? 10K? Half marathon? I'll be completely honest here. I don't really enjoy running, I just do it because it's a better cardio workout for a short amount of time than biking is.
With moving to Edmonton, I joined a little, private cycling group that I just happened to run in to on the trails one day. I've been biking with this group for two and a half years now on probably a weekly basis. It's been great! Friends have been made, crashes have been brushed off, post ride drinks have been shared. My cycling was improving at a fast rate because I was riding with veterans.
I started looking at bike races. I wanted a challenge to work towards. A lot of the off road bike races are hours away and were extremely difficult compared to my skill and endurance at the time. I found the Xterra Canmore off road triathlon. I registered for the sprint distance because I was a terrible swimmer so I needed to start small. 500m swim, 14km bike ride, 5km run. I thought "if I can get this swim down, the rest should be fine."
This really posed a completely different challenge. Start swimming, get better, be able to do 500 meters. I sought some advice from friends and did some research on swimming but once I started to train, it became very real. I was nowhere near where I should be with the training time that I had. This was going to be tough. The other issue was that the swim was in a lake. I had never had a wet suit on in my life or went swimming for distance in open water.
Training continued. Trying to squeeze in biking, running and swimming on top of work and family was a big challenge. Fortunately, my wife was supportive and work was kind of slow. Race day kept edging closer and closer, and every day I'd think "I just have to make it through the swim."
Race weekend was here, the race being Sunday. I accidentally volunteered to help with a quad rally the day before so we were going to arrive at the venue a little late the night before but I was sure it wouldn't matter. We towed our little tent trailer down for a cheap place to sleep before the race. It poured rain the whole way to our campsite and when we finally got set up, I was really wishing we had planned this better. The schedule for the next morning was to grab breakfast at 6am and head to the race for 7 to get my package and set up transitions before the race started at 830. The little town of Canmore apparently does not have much open that early in the morning so I got stuck eating mcdonalds breakfast before a race. A little less than ideal. I got my race package, got my transitions set up and had lots of time to spare, which was great because I needed it to try and get my wet suit on. There was no way I could get this wetsuit to fit properly. It felt like someone was pulling my arms toward my sides all the times. I had to make the best of it. It was race time.
The horn went and everyone hit the water. I waited to let people clear out because I knew I would be slow. Once I started, it wasn't too long before I got kicked, not hard, but hard enough. This was something I hadn't dealt with, congestion in the water. Soon, it passed, and I became tired. When I swim in the pool, I just flip over and back stroke when I get tired or my breathing isn't working. When I did that in the lake, I quickly got corrected by one of the lifeguards on a paddle board that I was heading in a wrong direction. Somehow, I was going to have to front crawl this whole swim. The lifeguard that corrected me stayed with me for the swim. Any time I needed a break I was allowed to stop and rest on the paddle board. I made it to the far end of the lake and thought to myself, "I don't know if I can do this. I'm so tired and I'm only half done." Still, I managed to carry on and exited the lake in dead last. I got to my bike and the guy who finished in front of me was changing right beside me. He says, "man, I really hate sucking." So I smiled and said, "you know, the worse part's done, let's go kill this bike ride. It's going to be fun."
I took off and hit the trail. This was where I belonged. On my bike, on the single track, weaving through trees and carving berms, passing tons of people that left me far behind in the water. I came around a corner on a descent where a camera man was standing to get some good pictures of the racers. Going pretty fast, I slid out a bit in the corner towards him, spraying him with dirt and almost taking him out. This was how I rode, he shouldn't have been standing there!
I finished the ride and went off for the run. Almost finished, my body was not my friend, but I kept pushing. This was the most difficult run I had ever done. Rocks, roots and hills were something I was comfortable with on my bike, but not under my feet. About 3km in, my legs started cramping and I couldn't run anymore. I was not expecting the combined effort of the whole race to be that hard on my muscles. All of the time I had made up on the bike was going to be lost if I couldn't get running again. I walked for about 5 minutes, constantly stretching to see if I could get my legs moving again. Finally, I was close enough to the end and I just went for it, ran through the cramps as hard as I could and crossed the finish line. It was so relieving. I had made it, finished my first triathlon.
You'd think that after something that difficult, I would have learned to maybe back off of something that challenging. Race day is 27 days from now. I'm so much more prepared this year and I'm going to kill my time from last year. I know it.