In late March, a friend in Ljubljana contacted me and another friend to inquire about our willingness to do a triathlon. She was turning 50 this year, knew I was turning 40, and thought this would be the perfect opportunity. So the training commenced. We are fortunate to live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, with endless biking and running options and crystal-clear mountain lakes to swim. If I was going to do a triathlon, the sheer beauty of Slovenia made few places better suited for training.
The triathlon would take place at picturesque Lake Bled in Slovenia in September. That gave us many weeks to train. I am a seasoned runner, so I was confident that the 10K (6.21 miles) wouldn’t give me much trouble. I was already efficiently running 10 miles a week, and bringing that up wouldn’t cause me too much stress.
I already had a solid, a bit old, road bike to train the cycling portion. I unfortunately hadn’t cycled much since college. This triathlon required a 40 K (24.85 miles) bike; those initial training rides were an absolute pain in the butt (literally). However, I soon remembered I loved biking and looked forward to those training days even more than my runs.
My biggest fear, which had held me back from doing a triathlon before, was the swim (1500 meters or 0.93 miles). Let me be clear: I can swim. I knew all the basic strokes and was never in danger of drowning; however, I had no idea how to swim efficiently or competitively. Aside from going to the beach or swimming in a lake on vacation, I had never swam in open water. I had a lot of fear surrounding the swim. One thousand five hundred meters is a long way, and I would have to pay attention to where I was going (there are no lane lines in a lake) and contend with other swimmers. So, I took the advice I give anyone who asks me how they should start working out.
I hired a coach.
Her name is Maja, and she once swam for the Slovenia national team. She was a godsend. I know I would have never managed to swim that distance without her. She taught me how to swim freestyle properly and how to swim for a triathlon. In a triathlon, you use your legs sparingly to save them for the bike and run. She gave me the tools and the confidence to do the swim. While I never came to enjoy my swim sessions, I knew I could complete it without drowning. I can’t stress enough the power of hiring a coach. They keep you accountable, keep you from spinning your wheels, and help you build confidence and succeed safely and effectively. If you are working out independently and aren’t seeing results, hire a coach or instructor. It will always be worth it.
So, I trained, even when it wasn’t convenient or easy. I spent my summer at home in the US, and I trained while I was there. I used my Dad’s road bike and swam in their local city pool. I built my strength, stamina, and the belief that I could do it. While I have had a sound exercise and fitness routine for most of my life, this is the most time I have spent working out. It started to wear on me towards the end. There is a solid reason why I champion 30-minute workouts. As a busy mom and business owner, I don’t have time for daily 60 to 90+ minute workouts. That is not a sustainable routine, but I persevered as this was only temporary.
The first curveball came a little over two weeks before the race. The race details were finally posted near the end of July, in the middle of our week at Disney World. I heard from one of my training partners but didn’t think much about it because we were living our best Disney lives, and I needed a mental and physical break from the training. We arrived back in Slovenia a week later, and I jumped back into my training. I went to register for the race and found most of the details in Slovenia. This isn’t a big surprise, but I used Google translate to sign up successfully and didn’t think anything else about it. 2 weeks before the race, one of my training partners sent me an early morning text as I was getting ready to walk out the door and head for the pool. She asked me if I noticed the 2:15 swim/bike cutoff. I didn’t see it when I signed up for the race, so I went back in, and sure enough, there was a 2:15 minute cut-off for the swim and the bike.
I was devastated!
My swim times were about 45 minutes for 1500 meters, and I averaged 15-16 mph on my bike. With the transition, 2:15 would be next to impossible for me to complete. My training partner said that she looked at other races, and most had a cut-off around 3:15, but the Slovens don’t make anything easy. I thought maybe the 2:15 cutoff was just for the men, so I reached out to the organizer to confirm and was told that the cutoff would be 2:30. While that would still mean I would have to be faster on the swim, there was a slim possibility that I could make that happen.
The second issue arose with the bike course. The course required seven laps with a total elevation gain of 2,132 ft. There was a 0.35-mile stretch with a 10.7% grade, which I had to do seven times. That is brutal. While I had been training on hills, I needed to do more to be prepared for that amount of elevation.
In my head, I was thinking, I had done all this work training. All this time and money and there is a good possibility that I won’t be able to finish. Not because my body wasn’t capable of completing it but because I wasn’t going to be able to do it fast enough. After wallowing in self-pity and tears, I started weighing my options. Not doing a race at this point was not an option. I was going to complete a triathlon. There was an option to do a much shorter version of the race (300 m swim, 12 m bike, and 3.3 m run), but with the amount of training I did, it seemed like I would be taking the easy way out. I thought about completing the race independently with my husband and kids tracking the time, but that also felt like a cop-out. I looked at other races, but there weren’t any within driving distance that was both the Olympic distance and on a day I could make work with my schedule. So I decided that the best choice was to do the race as planned, and if I didn’t finish in 2:30, I would complete the run on my own, and while I would officially get a DNF, I would still be able to say I completed a triathlon to the best of my ability.
When I was weighing my options, I was thinking about my kids. Part of the reason I work out and take my health and fitness seriously is to set a good example for them. I want them to see the value in physical and mental fitness and understand that while it might not always be easy, some things are worth the effort. I don’t mind my boys seeing me fail; there are lessons to be learned from failure. However, I never want them to see me give up or take the easy way when the road gets tough.
Check back next week to see how it all turned out!
Proud of ya Kid!! Love, Dad