In early September, a good friend of mine and I were sitting on the grass knoll outside the Student Union Building of UBC discussing the idea of doing an Olympic Triathlon - a 1500m swim, 40km bike and 10km run. We had both completed the Gran Fondo Whistler and we were ready for another challenge. A couple months later, we shook hands on it and we both were committed to completing the UBC TriDu Triathlon on March 11th. As soon and I signed up, I became entirely motivated to train for the event. I spent most of my time in the pool to ensure that I could complete at least 1500m. By the time that I finished training, I had my swim time down to ~25 minutes. I left my bike training to be covered by all the mountain biking that I do. Especially as the weather was terrible to train on a road bike. As for running, I have a 7.4 km loop around my house and I tried to run as often as possible.
March 11th came awfully quick but I felt prepared. The first stage was the swim which I now had a lot of experience with. I came out of the pool feeling good. Next, I ran over to the bike transition station, laced up my clip shoes and saddled up for a 40km ride along SW Marine Dr. Finally, I came back to the transition station, threw my bike shoes off and laced up my runners. I took my first step and the legs were hurting. I felt like a new born calf trying to learn how to walk! I ran it off, got into a good running zone and before I knew it, I was running past the finish line. I was stoked as I ran up to the finish line and saw that I was about to beat my goal of a sub 3hr time. I finished with a time of 2hr and 51 minutes! Good enough for 81st out of 191. Not bad for the first time.
1500m swim: complete
40km bike: complete
10km: complete
It's time for a personal pitcher at the bar!
