I submitted the following essay to a contest for the 250 first timers in the triathlon I did on October 17th.
My First Triathlon
By Jennifer Montgomery, #579
For about 10 years I’ve been saying “I want to do a triathlon.” Ten years ago, that was during college. That was before marriage, before kids, before careers, volunteer work, multiple moves, multiple pets, multiple countries and multiple excuses for why I couldn’t take time to do a triathlon. During college is when I should have done my first triathlon, not just because making time to train would have been much easier, but because I could have gotten hooked then. I could have gotten hooked and been doing triathlons all this time, for me, while all my excuses carried on around me.
But I didn’t do my first triathlon back then and four months ago I found myself no longer the young athlete that I once identified myself as. I suddenly started identifying myself as the woman, wife and mother of two that I now am. While I LOVE with all my heart being this woman, I missed that young athlete that craved competition and pushed herself to go longer and faster with each swim meet, each track meet and each workout. Aerobics for housewives has just never really been my thing.
In July I Googled “Texas Triathlon” and a few clicks later found Try Andy’s Tri in Sugar Land, just 20 minutes down the road. I signed up, paid my money and it was done, I was doing it. Back in the pool I went, I could now justify bike rides without the kiddo trailer and hello running, it’s been a long time. The first time I ran three miles without stopping was just amazing and as I started feeling stronger in the pool and faster on my bike I began to think, I can really do this.
My husband kept telling me that I was nervous the week leading up to the race. Of course I was nervous, what was I thinking in doing this? Was I actually going to do this? The idea of getting up before the kids and driving 20 miles away before the sun even came up, well that seemed crazy. How would my household even function without me there to wake it up and get it moving. That’s my job, I turn on the lights…who is going to turn on the lights if I’m not there?
The night before the race I went over and over the race route in my mind, from start to finish. I’m seriously going to come in very last. The guy is going to be standing at the end with a cone in his hand and a look on his face that could only mean, “It’s about damn time!” There’s no way I’ll be able to run 3 miles at the end, after all that swimming and biking, no way. I worked really hard, I really tried to get to that point, but it just didn’t happen. Everyone is going to be passing me while thinking in their head, “Seriously, go back to the donut shop you apparently crawled out of and leave this racing business to the ones that can hang.”
Then the morning came and I got up, got dressed and pulled my family-mobile vehicle quietly into the street. The morning smelled so wonderful, the way the world only can when very few are up and about. I took some deep breaths and pulled out of my subdivision and hit the Grand Parkway bound for Sugar Land. As I closed in on the race site I started seeing more and more vehicles with bicycles attached to them. Then, all of a sudden, I didn’t feel so out of place. All that hard work, all that training, that should mean I deserve to be here, right?
I got my bike all set up an hour before the race was supposed to start and took a walk around to see exactly what I had gotten myself into. To my surprise, there were lots of people that looked, well, just like me. When I got back to my bike and still had 45 min. to kill before the race I heard a friendly voice come from the woman sitting down on the ground next to my bike. She asked me if this was my first time. Okay, so it’s totally obvious, yikes. She said her name was Kara and then she started, without prompting, assuring me that I would do great and that I was going to love it. We chatted all the way to starting line and she was a life saver. Not only did I finish the race, I beat my goal by more than ten minutes. It was an experience that I will never forget and the only regret that I have is that I didn’t do it sooner.
By Jennifer Montgomery, #579
For about 10 years I’ve been saying “I want to do a triathlon.” Ten years ago, that was during college. That was before marriage, before kids, before careers, volunteer work, multiple moves, multiple pets, multiple countries and multiple excuses for why I couldn’t take time to do a triathlon. During college is when I should have done my first triathlon, not just because making time to train would have been much easier, but because I could have gotten hooked then. I could have gotten hooked and been doing triathlons all this time, for me, while all my excuses carried on around me.
But I didn’t do my first triathlon back then and four months ago I found myself no longer the young athlete that I once identified myself as. I suddenly started identifying myself as the woman, wife and mother of two that I now am. While I LOVE with all my heart being this woman, I missed that young athlete that craved competition and pushed herself to go longer and faster with each swim meet, each track meet and each workout. Aerobics for housewives has just never really been my thing.
In July I Googled “Texas Triathlon” and a few clicks later found Try Andy’s Tri in Sugar Land, just 20 minutes down the road. I signed up, paid my money and it was done, I was doing it. Back in the pool I went, I could now justify bike rides without the kiddo trailer and hello running, it’s been a long time. The first time I ran three miles without stopping was just amazing and as I started feeling stronger in the pool and faster on my bike I began to think, I can really do this.
My husband kept telling me that I was nervous the week leading up to the race. Of course I was nervous, what was I thinking in doing this? Was I actually going to do this? The idea of getting up before the kids and driving 20 miles away before the sun even came up, well that seemed crazy. How would my household even function without me there to wake it up and get it moving. That’s my job, I turn on the lights…who is going to turn on the lights if I’m not there?
The night before the race I went over and over the race route in my mind, from start to finish. I’m seriously going to come in very last. The guy is going to be standing at the end with a cone in his hand and a look on his face that could only mean, “It’s about damn time!” There’s no way I’ll be able to run 3 miles at the end, after all that swimming and biking, no way. I worked really hard, I really tried to get to that point, but it just didn’t happen. Everyone is going to be passing me while thinking in their head, “Seriously, go back to the donut shop you apparently crawled out of and leave this racing business to the ones that can hang.”
Then the morning came and I got up, got dressed and pulled my family-mobile vehicle quietly into the street. The morning smelled so wonderful, the way the world only can when very few are up and about. I took some deep breaths and pulled out of my subdivision and hit the Grand Parkway bound for Sugar Land. As I closed in on the race site I started seeing more and more vehicles with bicycles attached to them. Then, all of a sudden, I didn’t feel so out of place. All that hard work, all that training, that should mean I deserve to be here, right?
I got my bike all set up an hour before the race was supposed to start and took a walk around to see exactly what I had gotten myself into. To my surprise, there were lots of people that looked, well, just like me. When I got back to my bike and still had 45 min. to kill before the race I heard a friendly voice come from the woman sitting down on the ground next to my bike. She asked me if this was my first time. Okay, so it’s totally obvious, yikes. She said her name was Kara and then she started, without prompting, assuring me that I would do great and that I was going to love it. We chatted all the way to starting line and she was a life saver. Not only did I finish the race, I beat my goal by more than ten minutes. It was an experience that I will never forget and the only regret that I have is that I didn’t do it sooner.
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