You can only have one “first time” or so we are told.  While this is true in a thread counter, nit picking, letter of the law sort of way I am going to be stubborn (there is a shocker).  I truly feel that in spirit you CAN have more than one first time.  This is how I view my triathlon career, where I have BK and AK (before kids / after kids) periods.  For a variety of reasons, I did my last race in early 1996 and then drifted away from the sport.  In fairness, the kids had nothing to do with it but they do make a handy dividing line and it gets them all riled up when I say it.   No one thing stopped me from racing but as time went by work and life overtook me.  I already talked about my first FIRST race but now comes the story of my second FIRST race.  So, let us set the wayback machine to the summer of 2008.

In 2008 I had been playing hockey for 6 years but beyond that I was doing no physical activity.  Hell, my bike had become a home for wayward spiders looking for a place to crash in our garage.  One of my wife’s friend and co-worker was in remission (still is to this day, snoopy dance!!) from leukemia.  I had been going through some boxes in the garage and found some of my old race stuff: medals, race bibs and shirts that were way too small (somehow, they managed to shrink while sealed in a box – really weird, I know).  This made me a little wistful for the “good ole days”.  The weird part was a few days later a postcard came in the mail from the Team in Training, a fund-raising organization for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS).  Team in Training (TNT) provide training and race support for endurance events in exchange for the participant fund raising.  As a side note these are both organizations I respect and feel they have a great mission.  One hour long information meeting and a lengthy family discussion later I was headed back to the land of endurance sports.  I was going to have 14 weeks to get ready for an Olympic distance race at Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay.  For those who don’t speak Tri that means a 1.5k swim, 40k bike ride and then a 10k run.  This is the distance of the race that is run in the Olympics.

Turned out that both my ego and my brain were in synch when I headed for the first track workout with the team.  Both parts were proudly proclaiming “we go this”, it only took about 15 minutes to realize – we didn’t have this.  I might have done more than 15 races when I was in my twenties but that didn’t mean diddly in my forties.  Physically I was starting from zero (and at times it felt like less than that) and from equipment point of view it wasn’t much better.  My twenty-year-old mountain bike that I thought I would ride hadn’t had much (ok, try no) maintenance in the past 12 years and failed in epic fashion on the first group ride.  I was able to get back under my own power and used that little detail to make my stung pride feel a little better.  At the end of the first week all I had going for me was that I could still swim fairly well and I was too damn stubborn to admit I was in over my head.

As I am writing this I realize that it is way too much for one entry so I am going to break it up into easier to digest chunks.  Otherwise I would be producing a cure for insomnia.  I do want to leave you with a picture of me from one of the early training rides.  Please note the high-end tri gear I am sporting, NOT (to be fair that bike would go on to do more than a dozen tri’s including a Half Iron Man).  Think Yogi Bear riding a bicycle.