Yesterday was the first of the Midwest Indoor Tri Championship Series races at Wheaton Sports Center.  I had a good race and completed a little over 11.5 miles.  As usual, it was a very fun race and I saw many familiar faces, from the Race Director, Nancy, to competitors who I've known for more than 20 years.  Even though this is a very low key event, it is still an extremely hard workout.  The bike (20 minutes on a stationary ergometer) is killer and the 5 minute transition between the bike and run, while more rest that in outdoor races, doesn't really help much. My heart rate maxed out at 174 beats/min on the bike. Given I'm 58, that puts my max heart rate about 12 beats/min higher than my predicted max (220-58=162)!

I am a physical therapist and teacher by profession, but my real passion in life is racing! I live for those rare moments in races when you feel you are really putting all the training and planning together with an all-out effort and total commitment to achieve a goal! That goal can be to win your age group, to finish in the top 10 or just to know that you are finishing strong and leaving nothing out there on the course.  

     I wasn't much of an athlete growing up, but even as a 10 year old I would make my sister race me in complicated multi-sport events. We had a swimming pool and these races often involved swimming across the pool, doing a certain number of pull-ups on the clothesline pole, riding our bikes to the neighbors and back and then running around the house. Even then I loved the idea of one race to test every aspect of one's athletic abilities! It's cool I ended up as a triathlete.  

    Well, here I am almost 50 years later and I've done a whole lot of races. One of my tricks for reducing disappointment is to sandbag.  If you're not familiar with this term, it means to "build a wall".  For me, that means lowering my own expectations (and those of my competitors and anyone else who knows me).  That way, no matter how I do, short of a DNF, I can feel like the race was a positive experience!  But really, I'm so lucky to have been able to race all these years and to have benefited from this lifestyle as a triathlete. 

     One thing I do regret though, is that over the years many of my friends in this sport haven't continued and have dropped out for various reasons. This has had two effects: first, I miss those people and I feel like I'm in this alone for the first time, and second, its depressing because I wonder if that's what's next for me. That is what has brought me to create this blog.  I'm hoping that I can rekindle my love for the sport of triathlon and stay connected with fellow triathletes and other multi-sport bloggers. 

Favorite quote: "...at so many stages along the way, the limits that I thought I could see in the distance dissolved as I approached them. They turned out not to be real at all, but mere assumptions. And that has been the most exciting revelation of all" 
Chrissie Wellington, A Life Without Limits, 2013