How it all began - Part II Biking

It seems like everyone in swim class was preparing for a triathlon. I couldn’t swim, bike, or run. I never did any sports. I had horses and rode but never did any sports in school. Right before I realized I was pregnant with our third child I had bought a comfort bike. I took it from the store to the Greenway and almost threw up. I was so sick I took it back to the car and didn’t even get on it! So that comfort bike sat there, never ridden.

After I had our third child there was a woman named Nancy in our swim class who said “You should do a triathlon”. Ok, I have never run, I couldn’t make it across the pool, and I had no idea how to stop a bike. Good idea. So she took me to the Greenway on my comfort bike. I was quite frightened and reasonably unstable on this thick wheeled machine. I definitely could not keep up with Nancy. I was far back on the Greenway on my knobby yet pretty bike.

I went biking with Nancy about ten times and one day my husband said “Try my road bike”. So I went biking with Nancy on the road bike. Nancy had a great idea to cross over a bridge on the street. It was high above the water with a very large stoop down to the street. As we crossed I panicked, tried to jump off the bike that was WAY too large for me, ran into the concrete bridge and rolled off the thick stoop into the middle of the street. Thank goodness no cars were coming at that moment! Blood was all over the bridge and running down my arm. Nancy was already back at the parking lot and I walked back up with my husband’s road bike with blood dripping down from my limb. I still wear that scar today as a reminder of my newness to this thing called biking.

Somehow I was talked into doing a triathlon. Our youngest was four months old. I really was still recovering from my third C-Section because when they did this surgery they accidentally cut my bladder and I had to have a catheter for some time. My body will really never be the same after so many surgeries.  But I did my first triathlon in May of 2010 in North Carolina at an all female super sprint called the Rambling Rose. This is a series of races and this one was located in Raleigh. A week before the super sprint I finally made it across the pool! I took my husband’s road bike. I had only ridden in two times before I showed up.

Packet Pick up with the Fam

                                                       

I was going out very late due to my swim time. The race started. Folks started. I waited and waited. Then a big storm blew in. They halted the swim and again we waited and waited. It poured down rain. Finally they decided to make it a duathlon. They said if you still want to race you can start the bike and do the run. After all that work in the pool the swim was cancelled!

So the very inexperienced me jumped on her husband’s very over sized road bike in the pouring down rain when most of the girls decided to go home! Visibility was VERY low and there were many steep and sharp turns. I finished the bike and came back to the flooded transition area. Everything I had laid out was covered in a flood of water. I started the run which was part on pavement and part off road. It was very muddy. I took my time talking to everyone on the way (what was I thinking??) and encouraged the walkers along the way. I was just there to have a good time. I finished. I felt good. I had sort-of done my first triathlon – or I had done my first and only duathlon. 

Husbands Road Bike