First Triathlon Story

I am an ex-high school/college athlete, in the 35-40 category, two kids, and I just finished my first triathlon two day ago, it was amazing! I went over on the time limit so I did not recieve a score (it bothers me that I have a DNS by my name) but my goal was only to finish the race.

At the beginning, before the swim, I was so nervous. The men went in the first wave of swimmers. I was especially worried (since I am not the strongest swimmer and have really only swam recreationally) when two of the men had to be saved by the life guards on duty. You can imagine the terror I was feeling at this point. Then, my starting buzzer sounded and off we went. It was total chaos! I hung back (advice I got from this website) and just went at my own pace. I enjoyed the swim very much, in my head I was thinking "this isn't so bad... you CAN do this".

Then we transitioned to the bike. Okay, I only thought I had trained for the bike portion. Again I was so nervous that I put my bike helmet on backwards, some nice man on the trail pointed this out to me :-) This was by far the hardest part of the race for me. It was 13 miles of super rough terrain. Cliffs, loose rock, tree roots, twists and turns, bugs, huge climbs and downhill plunges, cascading rock drops, it was crazy! I loved every minute of it.

We had 3 hours to finish and I am somewhat embarrased to say that I exceeded that time limit; however, even though I knew I was disqualified for any of the awards, I went on and transitioned into my run and ran the 5.3 miles in at just under an hour. I ran my race and I am so proud I did this, next time I will know what to expect and I WILL be ready for that crazy bike ride. My advice for newbies: do NOT underestimate any portion of the race!

Thank you so much to this site for all the useful, friendly advice! I have already started training for my next mini-tri being held in September. Live Strong


Sarah from Texas

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Hi Sarah,

Thank you for contacting TraitahNewbie.com and the kind words!

We're sorry to hear that you got disqualified, but we're thrilled to hear that you had a wonderfully positive experience with the sport outside of that. Sounds like you mixed a very challenging course with a fantastic attitude and will be addicted to the sport very soon if you aren't already!

We just got a DVD in the mail from Total Immersion called, "Outside the Box, A Total Immersion Program for Success in the Open Water". We were so happy to read your story that we all agreed you should have it!

Please send along your mailing address and we'll get it out to you asap.

Be well,
~Niki

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