Racing to Save Lives!

My first Triathlon, Part I.

This post has a long time in the making. But here it is:

Like most people who are now racing (or have raced) triathlons in the past. I first learned about the sport by watching a bunch of crazy individuals in what they called "Ironman" in the early 80's. It was certainly an exotic event at the time. They used to show snapshots of the race on one of the most popular sports shows in Mexico called "DeporTV".

I have to admit I was always mesmerized by the race. How crazy does someone need to be to take part in such an excruciating event? Are they out of their mind? Not only were they spending over 8 hours in the race, but the last event was a FULL marathon!. What were they thinking? I used to think I was never going to be able to do that!.

Then came my college days in the second half of the 80's -gosh, I'm dating myself here- and triathlons slowly started to appear around my hometown; a couple of friends I knew from my track and field team made the jump. Then our University began having a yearly event, somewhat similar to today's Olympic/International distance (1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run).

I figured I would take the plunge like my friends and started to "train", or so I thought, for the triathlon, feeling confident the race portion should not be a problem I started swimming 3000 meters, 2-3 times a week. That was a short lived effort, which didn't last for more than a couple of months because of lack of committment and training partners probably (excuses, excuses). My triathlon dreams were put on hold for a few years...

Fast forward to 2005, when I finally decided to start exercising regularly; a few cometitive 5K's here and there, some jogging, some weight lifting at the Motorola gym; and... some pilates at the local YMCA too!, they were all part of my workout before I stumbled upon an ad on the internet for an upcoming Triathlon: The TRIAmerica Series was coming to town.

I learned about the event 5 days before the race, so I figured, well, I have a mountain bike. I hadn't done any swimming since college but since I signed up for the Sprint distance (800 meter swim, 20 Km bike, 5Km race) I figured that wouldn't be a problem. Besides, how hard could it be to ride 20 Km anyway???