Super Slow Bloke's Iron Triathlon

After leaving blogs unloved for almost a full year, I will try to ressurect this one to reflect my attempt at doing Triathlons.

The decision to do triathlons came from my 9 y.o. son. One day walking through the park he said he wanted to do that sport where you swim, ride and then run. It sounded good to me. I'd been doing some running, mainly 3-4 km slow jogs most nights of the week. If he was going to do triatrhlons, then I thought it would be something we could do together. That was 12 months ago

First I had to learn to swim. That was always going to be the toughest part for me. Anyway, first time in the pool, dived in and swam as hard and far as I could before stopping. Fighting for breath some 20 metres or so from where I started, I knew this was not going to be an overnight success.

Eventually, I managed to get to 500m and thought it time to try out my new ability. There was a small triathlon in my local town at the start of January, advertised as 200m / 6km / 2km. That was short enough for me to attempt. On the day, I was surprised to hear the distances had all changed. It was now 400/12/3. My ability to swim 400m was questionable, but I was not going to turn back now.

It was a water start, with everyone in the river for safety reasons. A mass start down a wet & slippery boat ramp is just asking for trouble. The aim on the swim was to make it to the end. Time was irrelevent for me, so I steered to the side to keep out of everyone's way then settled into a slow pace. Even the guy doing backstroke left me well behind.

Suprisingly, I noted that there was still a couple of people behind me when I got out of the water. With a bit of confidence, I hit the bike and headed off after the rest of the pack. At this stage, I realised how out of condition I was. While there had been many k's done slogging away on the run, this was virtually my first ride on a bike for possibly years. There were a couple of riders I managed to overtake and one came from behind, so I had picked up one spot. The legs started to burn on the way back from the turnaround point, so I knew I was in trouble.

Into transition again and off on the run. Ay, Carumba!! Whoever came up with this idea of running after riding a bike was a nuts! For those who have never had the experience, give this a try. I'd been used to running 5-10 k every day, but after the bike, the legs just felt weird. I couldn't get them to work properly at all. This was the part that I had done all the training for and I just couldn't get going. It was plod 100m, walk 50. Plod some more, walk again.

At the half way mark, I took in some water and continued to shuffle/walk back. Luckily about 2/3 of the way through, the legs started to feel normal and it became a regular shuffle, which slowly picked up speed to a normal jog by the end.

Mission accomplished. I had competed and finished my first ever Tri. My time was an appalling 1 hour 3 and a half minutes, but I made it. The local Tri club puts on a lot of these smaller races to attract new people to have a go. There were 45 who had a go and I managed to come in 37th.

My road into the life of a triathlete had started. Where it will finish is anyone's guess.