My sister is an inspiration to me and always has been. I attribute her zeal for fitness as to why my whole family is in much better shape than we were 5 years ago. After the 5k that I got to run with Lisa a while back, I didn't plan on being able to compete with her at this triathlon. So, my goal became to finish. I haven't done a triathlon in.... *GULP* 3 years! I was booked to do the 2007 CB&I triathlon, but I came down with a bad sickness and was unable to participate. Last year I had a couple of firsts (albeit, in reverse standard order) running a marathon in the summer and 1/2 marathon in the fall. So, that pretty much took up all of my training time in 2008.
The first triathlon that I "did" was the 2006 CB&I. The bike and swim got rained out so... it became my first 5k ever and was pretty emotional because at that point it was the longest I had EVER run for an extended time period in my life. My first "official" and only triathlon previous to this year was Jeff & Brede's Intergalactic Tri in 2006.
So... back to the present.
Based on my estimations my goal was to finish between 1:30 and 1:45 total race time. Actual time? 1:33:33.0 I couldn't be more pleased. Since my goal was just to finish (and I knew that in order to finish strong I couldn't push myself too hard on the swim and the bike... ) I kept things at a moderate pace throughout. I DID get to have the privilege of beating my sis at the swim portion though - by approximately 11 seconds! However, as she mentioned in her blog (and as I witnessed firsthand) there was a considerable pileup that she had to deal with. Who knows how we'd fair if this had been open water? I had a pileup to deal with too though. And I felt pretty victorious having passed 3 other swimmers during the course :-)
Overall, for me the most valuable time that comes from these sort of things is the time with family. My wife greeting me at the finish line, my parents giving the pre-race cheering, and the photos and encouragement along the way, and the laughter and love over a good breakfast afterwards. It feels good to be healthy. I'm craving more...
I got to catch up with my Dad some today over the phone. There is absolutely nothing that compares with hearing your father tell you how genuinely proud they are of you. I got to hear that today - with zeal and sparkle. My dad even remarked about how he was impressed with how much in shape I was to be able to do something like that. I think I've caught the tri bug because I want to do another.
On a side note - I don't think I'll be able to get the new Garmin 310xt until after we get back from our mission trip to Latvia. Who knows... maybe it will lower in price by then ;-) But I doubt it.
