A triathlon? My guest blogger tells how he did it

An accomplishment to be celebrated!

A few months ago, maybe a year, my brother-in-law, Joe, started to ask me about doing a mini-triathlon with him. “Really? You are serious?” He was. 

No doubt he asked me because a few years ago at one of the family reunions in Sandbridge Beach, he and I did a most memorable bike ride. We went from Sandpiper Road in Virginia to False Cape State Park, which borders North Carolina, through the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Here’s link to my blog, “Where’s Sandbridge?” that briefly refers to the ride.

At the time, there was not much of a trail. It was roughly indicated on the map, but it did not look complete. We decided to try it anyway. It looked like it was under 10 miles. How hard could it be? Famous last words.

This Back Bay ride took us through an area that Joe had once thought might have some kind of scientific significance. He is a scientist. I can’t remember the details of his theory, maybe he wanted to see for himself. I just wanted to do a nice under 20-mile RT bike ride. 

It turned out to be one of the MOST challenging rides I ever did; maybe THE MOST. 

I never expected to have to push my bike through undergrowth. The trail started on pavement, then moved to gravel, sand, and got so rough we were pushing bikes in a heavily thicketed swamp with very large mosquitos keeping us company. There were scant markers to keep us on route. Because I had little water, this was the first and only time I experienced anything coming close to real dehydration. Joe fortunately had packed some extra, which we shared. It saved me.

Ultimately, it ended with a joyful ride home mainly along sand and the beach. The ride took us some six hours, maybe longer.

It was amazing. Since Joe and I had this incredible experience, I guess he felt I would be up for another adventure. I was impressed by his ambition and touched by his confidence in me, but with all the injuries I’ve had that involve some sort of physical activity, I had to say no.

That’s enough about the ride. Back to the mini-triathlon. Joe will tell it.

Quick details: The Alpha Hudson Valley N.Y. Triathlon starts and ends in Kingston and offers different levels. Here is a link to Alpha.win.

Joe will take over this blog from here. I will only add that meeting him at the end was fabulous! He was on a “runner’s high,” and he most certainly deserved it. It was great to see him accomplish this. We all enjoyed a lovely outdoor lunch afterwards, and maybe next year, I’ll do it with him. One never knows.

What was it like to Compete in My First Triathlon at Age 72? Motivating. Hard Work. Stressful. Satisfying.

By Joseph Thomas Keiser

Motivating. Most people have heard of the Iron Man Triathlon. This is a grueling race in Hawaii for elite athletes. Way beyond my capabilities. But about a year ago, I learned of a company, Alpha Win, that hosts less demanding triathlon races. Their motto is, “A distance for everyone.” They sponsor triathlons of four different distances:  Open (100-meter swim, 3-mile bike, 1-mile run), Sprint (750-meter swim, 12.4-mile bike, 3.1-mile run), Olympic (1500-meter swim, 24.8-mile bike, 6.2-mile run), and Long Course (1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike, 13.1-mile run).  

I was intrigued by these easier triathlons. The Sprint level seemed within my capabilities. I could already run 3 miles, and I could bike 12 miles. I hadn’t been doing much swimming, but I thought that with training I probably could do a half mile. But could I do all three events in the same race? It was worth a try, I thought. I signed up for a Sprint Triathlon.

Initially, a felt a sense of purpose regarding my training. Previously my exercising had been variable in frequency, type and intensity. Mostly I ran, but I also did some biking. Swimming was rare. Now I had a goal. My initial plan: Try to either run, or bike, or swim at least five days a week. Don’t worry about speed or distance. This was the fun phase of my training. I was excited about the goal. Friends and family members admired my decision and offered encouragement and advice. It felt good. But eventually this changed.

Hard Work. I had signed up for the Hudson Valley Triathlon in Kingston, N.Y., about 10 months before the event. My initial casual training phase – just try to run, or swim or bike at least five days a week – seemed fine at first. After all, the race was a long way off. But, at some point, I realized that I was going to have to work a lot harder. I was going to have to train in ways that would be similar to the race. I couldn’t just do a relaxing 2-mile jog and call it a day. I would need to do workouts that were longer and would sometimes involve two or even three of the activities, such as biking followed immediately by a run. This was more difficult, more time consuming and sometimes it hurt. It took a lot of the fun out of exercising. Previously I was exercising because I wanted to. Now I was exercising because I had to. Exercising had to become a priority. As a result, it squeezed some fun things out of my life. In the month prior to the race, I gave up ice cream. In the week before the race, I gave up alcohol. I was getting scared.

Stressful. There was a lot to worry about.  

I trained for the swim by swimming laps in a pool. But the race was in a lake. There would be lots of people jockeying for position. What if I get kicked in the head? Another worry – depending on the temperature of the lake, I might need to swim in a wetsuit. I had no experience with this. I had to buy a wet suit and practice swimming in it. As it turned out, the lake was too warm for a wetsuit, and we weren’t allowed to use them.  

The hilly bike course worried me. I had practiced biking on hills near my home. But the race course had more hills and steeper hills than where I practiced. What would this do to me? Would I be so exhausted after the bike race that I would need to walk the running course? I did not want to walk the running course. As a former runner, that would be embarrassing. What if I had to go to the bathroom? My projected time was 2.5 hours. It seemed reasonable that I might need to go in the middle of the race. (One bike mechanic told me that if you are ever working on a triathlon bike, you should assume that the seat is laced with urine. Yuck.)  This worried me.

All of my worries and fears reached a peak the night before the race. I was a nervous wreck. I couldn’t sleep. I thought to myself, “Why did you decide to do this? You didn’t need to put yourself through this. This was a really bad idea!”

The Race. I had expected a beach start. I was wrong. We were told to get into the lake and tread water in the vicinity of the start line. “Yikes, I can’t touch! I’m using up arm strength, and the race hasn’t even started!”  

My plan was to lay back and stay to the outside to try to avoid getting kicked in the head. There was a flaw in this plan. The women were swimming the same course on a 3-minute delay. I assumed that the faster women would catch me. They did. At one point, I was squeezed between two women passing me on either side. Fortunately, I didn’t get kicked in the head.  

After finishing the swim, I waded up to the shore where my socks, sneakers, glasses and a tea towel were waiting. I got my sneakers on and jogged up to the bike corral to get my bike and helmet. We were required for safety reasons to walk/jog our bikes from the corral to the road that was about 150 yards. Once on the road, my plan was to ride at the pace that I had trained at.  

I knew that my bike pace was slow, and so I was prepared to be passed by a lot of people during the bike phase. I was. I tried not to let it bother me. If someone passed me, I would say something positive like, “You’re looking good. Keep it up.” I tried to not let it affect my pace. I was afraid of the course hills, but they turned out to be not as bad as I expected. I have an ordinary bike that has more low gears than a triathlon bike. This helped me on the hills.  

I had been told by several people to “have fun” with this race. I told them, “This is not going to be fun. If I complete it, it will be satisfying.” And so I was surprised when about halfway through the bike race, I realized that I felt pretty good, the countryside was lovely, there were no bikes nearby at the moment, and it felt almost fun.

After finishing the bike race, I had to jog my bike to the bike corral, take off my helmet, switch T-shirts and start the run. “Oh no!  I can’t get my helmet off!” It has always been hard to get off, but this time I couldn’t get it at all. I’m losing time. I’m frustrated. What to do? I try to rip it off my head. That doesn’t work. I see a competitor nearby. It seems wrong to ask him for help. Now I see a race official. Is he allowed to help me? He does. My helmet is off. As I run out of the bike corral, I see my brother standing right next to the “Run Out” gate.

He has a big smile on his face. I smile back and give him the thumbs up. This lifts me.  I’m also uplifted by the fact that my legs feel good. The bike race hasn’t worn them out.  

I thought that I might be able to pass some people during the running phase. This turns out to be correct. There were some big people who were good on the bike, but who are slow on the run. There were also some people who were exhausted by this point and are now walking. Finally, it was my turn to pass some people. I stuck to the pace I had practiced and slowly began to move up in the race. Near the end there is an uphill portion – steep but short. I knew that the end was near. I picked up the pace and passed two people on this hill. From there the course is mostly downhill, around a corner, and then into the finishing chute. When I saw the chute, I picked up the pace and finished strong. To my delight, my wife was there filming.

Satisfaction. It is over. I did a good time: 2 hours and 6 minutes. Much better than I expected. I was 102nd place out of 131 participants. Not great. But not bad for the 5^th oldest participant.

I feel good now. It is a satisfying accomplishment. I think to myself, “Maybe I should do it again?”