Nathan's 'fun' triathlon

At the start of the month, we promised to blog about recent events, like Nathan's first triathlon in Australia. Nathan's done a 'sprint' triathlon before while in Minnesota. After several attempts to learn to swim, he was somewhat undone by the 4 ft wide pool of algae that greeted him at the start of his first triathlon in Chester Woods. Although the last man out of the algae at that race, his speedy biking and running let him finish in a respectable position. The algae was enough to send his dreams of becoming a triathlete into hibernation.

Australia, the land of triathlons, has reawakened the dream. With beautiful beaches, lined by miles of pedestrian/cycle paths, its really the place for it. This year, Nathan's new year's resolution was to train for a triathlon. The emphasis here is TRAIN. So, in October, Nathan makes the commitment of buying a road bike and begins his training. The water is a bit cold so the last week of October Nathan buys a triathlon wetsuit. After a test swim in the wetsuit, Nathan signs up for a fun triathlon one week later on November 8.

Triathlons are like candy bars, they come in fun, regular, and king size (fun run, sprint, and extra sprint)...of course, then there are the real biggies...olympic distance, half ironmans and ironmans. The fun length was a 200m swim, a 10k cycle, and a 4 k run. The extreme is the iron man--2.36 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, followed by a marathon (26.2 miles). The fun size is a good way to get into the sport, so lots of people use it to get a taste of a triathlon.

The Powerstation Triathlon seemed like a good way for Nathan to get started as its only a few minutes from our house. THAT was before we heard that registration/instructions was at 6:30 am with a 6:45 am start. To ensure we got a good start to the morning, we packed all the bags the night before and walked through the race.

RACE DAY:
The alarm goes off AT 6:30. SH!T--Nathan's exclamation shakes the entire bed. We are out the door in 5 minutes (me with hair like Yahoo Serious). We roll up to the event at 6:45, Nathan racing towards the start line in bare feet.

Luckily, the race instructions are a little behind schedule. I set up his transition set (shoes, socks, helmet) and take our bag out of the way, and set up near the start line to cheer him on.

Meanwhile, Nathan is looking for me because the goggles are in the bag, as he's trying to get his wetsuit on, but his race singlet is caught in the zipper. THINGS are NOT going his way.

He misses the start of the men's heat and has to start with the women, with his shirt caught in the zipper of the wetsuit and no goggles. He starts the race with the gals, so at this point he's not too worried about turning in a personal best. He manages not to drown for 200 m, then staggers up the beach, still trying to get his shirt out of his wetsuit zipper.

At the transition, he peels off his wetsuit and slides into his shoes, and races his bike up for the cycle portion. After the way the morning started this is EASY, and breaking a pedal on the new bike while getting started seems natural. Finally everything goes right and he cruises up several spots during the cycling leg. The course is tight, with a couple of laps, so dodging slower triathletes keeps the speeds down a little. Jumping off the bike, Nathan commits a triathlon faux pas by stopping to remove his cycling shoes -- a breach of etiquette, but keeps him from breaking anything else.

He heads off for the 4k run with jelly legs for the first half kilometer before finding his cruising speed. The wet singlet (that clogged up his wetsuit) begins chaffing making the last 1k more painful than any other part of the race. Finally, the finish appears and he races to the end....

I think he's hooked on triathlons, because he had the worst possible start imaginable and he's already training for the next one!