Lil' Tri Girl Resurrected?

Well, it's certainly been awhile. Nearly six years, actually, since I did my last triathlon - the Squamish Tri in 2005, the official first day of my pregnancy with Carmen! Crazy how time flies when you're procreating. I miss it though - the training and goal-setting, the excitement, biking around soaking wet... it's how I met my man.

OMG - these pictures are so old I actually had to SCAN them in. Geesh. And damnit, I have no idea where my lucky red bandana has gone. This is a bunch of us after the Squamish Tri in 2004 - the race that I trained for with Jason and totally fell in love with him...



And this is Jason and I at the New Balance Half Iron in 2005, right after we got engaged and decided to have babies...



In any event, I decided to sign up for an event, FINALLY. Actually, I meant to sign up for one a while ago, then forgot, then it sold out... yada yada yada, and those are the days of our lives!

And so, for the second time I will be doing the North Shore Sprint Triathlon on the Victoria Day weekend - May 23, Keira's original due date. It seems fitting, no? I did the event way back in 2004 and remember lots of happy, smiling faces on the sidelines cheering me on through the run. I will probably need it a lot more this time through!

My goal is to finish and have fun, decide if I still LIKE triathlon (!) and enjoy the training up until the event. Honestly, my husband talked me down from signing up for an Olympic distance, arguing that I could 'off the couch' the Sprint distance without too much risk of injury, based on my existing 30 mins here and 35 mins there of training time! He's a smart man, and so I agreed to maybe aim for an Olympic (Vancouver Tri) over the Labour Day weekend, so I can have the summer to fit in some longer rides when he is home from school. It also mirrors the baby-steps approach I took to my training in the first place - lots of sprints, a bunch of Olympics and then finally the Half Iron.

And so today I headed to the pool for a straight-up 30 laps to see how it felt (boring!), and secretly compare it to my time in 2004. I think that's going to be the hardest part for me is NOT competing with myself in that way. I used to sit at a desk all day and then literally SPRING into my swim, bike or run. Nowadays, I am fitting my brief spurts of training in after teaching a few classes and keeping up with my kids all day. Who knows - maybe my kids have turned me into a triathlon MACHINE?

Here's hoping. I do want to still love it, and eventually talk my husband into doing it together again...