A year in the making...

Sorry for talking abou this triathlon thing AGAIN but it's been a big part of things for me for a while now.

The Frank Dunn Waskesiu Triathlon was this weekend. One year ago I signed up for this race. I signed up to force myself to learn to swim. So, after a year, the day arrived.

The race was awesome. My four hours flew by and every part of the race went better than I expected. I estimated that I would take 4:30 and my actual time was 3:58.

The race started with a 1500 meter swim. I actually think that the course was shorter then 1500 meters as I finished it in 32 minutes and that seems too fast for my ability.

The best part of the swim is that I did it without stopping. My first attempt at a lake triathlon was at Pike Lake and I frequently stopped to orient myself. Not Sunday, I just swam the whole way (stopping three times to avoid getting kicked really hard). The above photo is me exiting the lake.

From the water, slip out of my wetsuit and get onto my bike. My younger son saved me. As I was charging out of the transition area Oliver was shouting at me, "Dad... your helmet!" If I had left the area without a helmet I might have been disqualified.

I heard someone say, "I don't know why I spend all this time organizing my stuff because whenever I get here my brain becomes completely addled and I can't remember what to do." That is an accute statement. Whatever one plans before the race goes out the window during the race.

The bike was a lot faster than I thought it would be. I was guessing that I would average 26 or 26 kph but I did it at 29 kph. The only down side was that I got sticky (trying to eat my energy gu and I HATE being sticky). There were 16 flat tires on the course. I am really lucky that I was not one of them as I am REALLY slow at changing tires. here I am at the end of the bike.

The on to the run. We shared a samosa to start the run. The plan was to have one each but eating solid food at that point wasn't very likely. This is where the only really unfortunate thing happened. My training partner Raj and I both had to pee. Once the running route got into some trees we stopped, pulled off the path an relieved ourselves. This actually set off a chain reaction and suddenly there were six different guys peeing in the trees. In my case, though, I put everything away a little early. OK, a lot early. I was still peeing. Pee gets all over everything, including my hand. Not thinking I promptly wiped my mouth with my pee hand. For a brief moment I thought, "What is that taste?" Then I realized I had consumed my own urine. Yuck. Although, it wasn't that bad actually. Basically warm, salty water.

Here we are rounding the corner just before the finish line (only 50 meters to go!).

Just after the photo above Raj's kids and my kids came sprinting out of the crowd and ran across the finish line with us. That felt good.

Here we are with the kids after finishing our first longer-than-standard distance triathlong.

My next race will be a half-marathon at Regina on September 7. I am interested in finding our where I am at half-marathon distance and checking to see if my hips will hold up. Want to drive down in the morning, race, and drive back? Travelling companions welcome. Dave@C95.com.

Then my plan is for a half-ironman next summer at Stony Plain (Edmonton) and then Ironman Canada in 2010 (3 km swim, 180 km bike, 42.2 km run). I am not sure that my hips will stand up to the punishment but as of now I have no hip pain at all so I'm hoping things will hold up for a couple of years.