The Day After - Guest Blog by resident Triathlete

The Day After

The late Jim McCay was noted for ABC’s Wild World of Sports. In the open he talked about the “Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat.” But Sunday I found a third way; “the Agony of Participating.” As some of you know I participated in a triathlon this Sunday. To those of you not familiar the triathlon consists of three events (swim, bike run) of varying distances. The version I did was the Sprint variety of triathlon in which the distances are reduced so you can “sprint” them (which I have to say did not enter my thoughts at any point during the day!). On paper it reads: Swim – ¼ mile, Bike – 12 miles, Run – 3 miles. Not too bad I thought to myself back in May.

The first event was the Swim, I should point out that this event takes place in the Ocean. Because of this fact wetsuits are recommended and a convenient rental company is made available. As Sarah and I (that is Sarah Scheidler, sister-in-law who did this with me) stared at the course from the beach, “the course didn’t look too bad.” Proclaimed with the delusion of standing on land, while dry, and not drinking in your weight in salt water.

It was after the first 10 steps into the water when I thought to myself I have a made a huge mistake. I remember one moment during the swim when I looked up at the buoy we were to swim around, and I thought to myself, that buoy is further away than it was just a minute ago. A sobering thought, I am actually going backwards! And even that was hard. Finally I made it around the buoys and made it back to land. I was looking forward to walking in or taking it easy going to the transition area, unfortunately Adrea and Maggie Brandow (Chris Brandows wife – who incidentally was the one who started the whole Triathlon idea) were standing right there on the beach to greet and cheer me on. As nice as it was that they were there this meant that I had to run it out (the other men out there will know what I am talking, ladies you can ask them). I have to say that one of things I am most proud of was being able to finish the swim portion.

Next up was the bike. The bike went fairly well except that I realized half-way through that my front brake was interfering with my front wheel. This made me slower than I would have hoped but by that time any pretense of performance was based solely on finishing. Another issue with the bike was the fact that my seat was on backwards... at least it felt that way.

Finally, the Run, The home stretch! Only three miles, pshah! I can do that! Easy! I figured the fact that I couldn’t feel my legs was natural and I chose not to worry about it.

Finally we finished and all was well. There was much more that went into this whole thing and maybe you will hear about here in the future….. Stay tuned!


(excuse us, Tim & Sarah, for using your "guest blog" idea)