Starting Out

The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my journey to become an Olympic distance triathlete at the oldest triathlon in Australia: Penrith Valley Nepean Triathlon www.nepeantriathlon.com.

Although I've been training for triathlons for at least 4 months now, I feel like I am just beginning. What I feel more than anything is scared. All my life people have told me to believe in myself. My answer has usually been either that I don't know how or that I can't. This blog is my attempt to "just do it". I am a teacher and I tell my students that there is no other way than to just take each step forward and go through it. That is how you learn. It is time to stop being safe and take my own advice. As the preschool song goes..."you can't go under it, you can't go over it, you have to go through it."

Endurance and consistency have never been my strong points. In my own self-perpetuating identity survey, I continually tick the boxes next to whimpy, impatient, whimsical, sedentery. It is my good fortune, then, to have married a man who, although he occasionally identifies with these words, refuses to tick these boxes. He is a fighter. Bring it on...he says.

I mention him because athletic persuits tend to be infectious. My husband, David, has always been athletic. Two years ago, he shared with me his intention to become an Ironman triathlete. At the time, I thought of it as a luxury. It was an expensive, mid-life-crisis goal of his. I truly did not understand. The date was March, 2009. I had half-heartedly participated since 2006 in the PTC http://www.pantherstriclub.com.au/ Tuesday night handicap runs. I had never finished a season. And yet, I egotistically believed myself to be a kind of athlete. I was a runner, I thought. I had done something that I never believed I could do: run 6.7 kilometers somewhat frequently. I was a superstar in my own mind. In reality, I both under- and overestimated myself.

The journey will continue...