As a child, I was never good at sports. I was the tall, gangly, klutzy one with no strength. Early on, I did manage to do some ballet (I know, ballet is not a sport), and actually got quite good at it, but after about grade 3, the schedule was inconvenient and Mom decided it was time to do something else. My parents did have my sister and I learn to swim and ski, for which I thank them, but I have to admit we were never stellar at these, by any stretch.
So when high school came along, I took the opportunity to drop “gym” as soon as I could, and thought I would never look back … clearly I was on an academic path and had no need of such things. At university, I admired my sporty friends, including my roommate who made the women’s hockey team and was constantly travelling for tournaments on top of her pre-med workload. But I had little curiosity about those who bee-lined for the phys ed centre at spare moments, not understanding the draw of ‘de-stressing’ during those anxious times of mid-terms and exams.
In my thirties, a few years into our marriage, I began to worry about our sedentary lifestyle; we read that absent any other changes, a slowing metabolism would cause you to gain a pound or two every year as you age, so that in a decade you could easily be overweight without even noticing it. So my husband and I invested in a recumbent bicycle for the basement, and then a weight machine. While I had no cardio endurance, I started slowly and built the habit of exercising three times a week. Now, my workouts were not very strenuous at this point, as I could barely lift a 10 lb dumbbell! But keeping up with it was half the battle, and little by little we improved. One year, my better half bought us a heart rate monitor which allowed us to see our progress. I eventually took the “fit test” that came with it, and it rated my fitness level as “good” for my age! Wow, finally in my forties and for the first time, I was good at something physical.
As life at work became more hectic, I grew to rely on and crave, the mood-enhancing benefits of working out. I became cranky if I had to miss my exercise time, and when travelling, became adept at ensuring hotels I stayed at had a gym. And when I saw age 50 looming in the near future, I began to panic … if I was ever going to achieve any of my vague plans for “real” physical fitness, I had better start soon. I decided it was time to become a runner!
The first step was to enroll in a learn-to-run program. Early in January of my 50th year, I sat expectantly with thirty anxious, mostly female participants at the back of our local running store. Our instructors, a more enthusiastic bunch you could not have asked for, laid out the eight week course that was in front of us … basically, we were going to learn to run one minute at a time. Initially, we walked for two minutes, and then ran for one minute. Each week, we worked our way up to running one more minute, until finally we would run 10 minutes at a time with a one minute walk-break. The running store’s philosophy was this was the way you could run any race, whether it was 1 km long or a marathon.
Week by week, we improved our endurance, and ran farther and longer.
Our Learn-to-Run graduation night
Week by week, our class got smaller, as New Year’s resolutions fell by the wayside or people just got busy. By the time week 8 came around, we were down to about 5 participants, but those who were left all had the running bug! Graduation night, our lead instructor Krista presented us each with our very own lucky Shamrock necklace, in honour of the 5 km St. Patrick’s Day race we were all going to run in a week.
As I was wrapping up the learn to run course, I knew I had to set a new goal, so on a whim, signed up for the Ottawa Race Weekend 10 km race in May of that year. Yikes, I had run 5 km a total of two times in my life and in just a couple of months was set to double that in a race filled with “real” runners. Time to sign up for the 10 km clinic. And so another 8 week course began, this one filled with another 30 eager runners. When we ran 6 km our first class, I was a bit discouraged; would I be able to hack it? But I knuckled down and followed the training program, not breaking any speed records, mind you.
After Ottawa Race Weekend 10 km
And when race day rolled around, I was ready for the distance, though a good twenty minutes slower than my fleet neighbour, Kirsty.
Summer rolled into Ottawa and all of sudden, running seemed unbearable. Time to change it up again, and draw on my ancient swimming experience. I got a swim membership at my local pool and began cycling the 10 km to the pool and swimming 1250 m. I was amazed at how much muscle memory remained when it came to freestyle swimming; somehow I just knew how to do it. And coming in with my improved cardio fitness made a big difference in raising my confidence in the pool.
Swimming and cycling again got me thinking … triathlon! And so, I began to search out races coming up that summer. I settled on a “Try a Tri” for my first time out, and decided it was time to train in earnest. The swim would be no problem; it was only 200 m, although in open water in early September, so I would have cold and crowds to deal with. The cycle was 15 km, a doable distance even for me, although once again, I wasn’t going to break any records. And the run, well, assuming I was still alive for that, it was only 3 km. How hard could that be?
In the T-zone after the Canadian Try a Tri
I focused my training on cycling and swimming, and probably not enough on running, but when race day came, I beat my goal time by a few seconds, despite having no idea about what to expect in the dreaded “transition zone”, the area where participants transition from one sport to another (swim to cycle, cycle to run). The swim was over before I really noticed it, but the barefoot stumble from the water to the T-zone was longer than I anticipated and I was puffing as I wiped off my feet, put on my shorts and shirt over my wet bathing suit (not many of us newbies had wet suits), tied on my shoes, buckled my helmet and grabbed a swig of water before I pushed my bike out to the course. I was riding my husband’s mountain bike, a good quality bike, but heavy for this environment. I caught my stride during the ride and managed to pass quite a number of people on the way down, but in the last fifty meters, up a small incline, it seemed about 50 riders passed me. Chock one up to strategy! I ran back to the T-zone, parked my bike, tore off my helmet and gloves, had another swig of water, and looked for the run starting line. Already I was tired, and my legs felt like jelly. Suddenly the 3 km was feeling like 300 km and I longed to walk. I did my best to run for the first 10 minutes but felt like I was out of gas in the second interval. I slowed to a walk briefly and then forced myself to run again. I caught up to my friend Robin and ran with her for a while, but finally had to drop back. In site of the finish line I trundled on, smiling gamely for the photographers catching our “historic” moments. And finally I was done, and my tiredness dropped away … I was 50 and a triathlete!
girlfromthetick 