Tri Something New

As I sat in my dorm room in 2011 scrolling Facebook on my laptop my senior year of college (when we still had dumbphones), I came across a tiny ad on the right rail of my screen promoting the first annual Jersey Girl Triathlon. It was a women-only short distance triathlon that would take place in Long Branch late September. It piqued my interest enough to follow that page and based on the progress I made in my newer running exercise routine, seemed like it would be a great fit in my quest to be fit.

I was always a great swimmer; I completed all the available swim lessons years ahead of schedule and often placed in our town’s summer swim team league. When I wasn’t practicing for a race, I was holding my breath under water for as long as possible and backflipping off the diving board. Our town’s swim team only went up to age 15, so I worked as a lifeguard in “retirement”. I lived at the pool in the summer and given my long red hair and affinity for the water, was appropriately called a “mermaid” most of my life.

I loved riding my bike around the county park near my house, and back in the 90’s and early 00’s there were no wearable GPS devices to tell me how far the loop would take me. I’d go as fast as I could with my mountain bike on the paved path, chasing the breeze that would cool off my sweaty helmet hair. I also enjoyed the days where I took my bike to the pool instead of calling my mom on the pay phone to pick me up (I disliked carrying spare change and wanted to use that money for snacks…especially ice cream).

I hated running until the middle of high school, when my Discman was swapped for a much lighter iPod Nano and I could run to the cadence of Nelly’s wordplay. With good music as a distraction, I had an on-again-off-again running habit during my college years in lieu of trying out for NCAA team sports.

Knowing that I enjoyed all three activities, attempting a triathlon made logical sense to me. The Jersey Girl Triathlon website said it would be a 300-yard ocean swim, 9 mile bike, and 3 mile run. The run and bike seemed doable, but the swim part stumped me. I used to swim the 200-meter individual medley, but that was in a pool where the water was clear, and I had my own lane. The Jersey Shore is NOT clear; most of the time it’s a murky green-brown with maybe a hint of blue on a good day. And there are waves. And as a fan of the Discovery Channel and aquariums, I’m well aware of the SHARKS and other potentially dangerous animals swimming nearby. A few years before I was so excited to have the chance to swim with sea turtles in Barbados, and when it came time to do so I was nervous about the creatures being near me. Wild animals don’t know I’m harmless to them; they can do wild things if I accidentally bump into them.

The thought of doing more than boogie boarding and wading waist-deep in the waves creeped me out a bit, so I made excuses not to sign up. What if I got a full-time job in the city as planned and I don’t have time to go to the YMCA to swim laps? I’m always at the lake on the weekends to waterski and don’t want to practice swimming there, so why would I do a triathlon down the shore? I always sprinted during swim meets and left nothing in the tank, so how would I be able to add biking and then RUNNING fast after that? My 22-year-old self was very much a perfectionist and thought that the other competitors would be experts at the sport even though everyone has a first time for everything. Between my all-or-nothing attitude and my undiagnosed ADHD, I forgot and “forgot” to sign up.

Throughout the years between that first Facebook ad and now, I’d see updates on the JG Tri page from ladies of all different skill levels. Words of encouragement, questions or advice, and positive posts of smiling athletes in all shapes and sizes filled the page annually around each race day. I missed accomplishing things that made me smile ear-to-ear like that. Each December that I put “compete in a triathlon” as a goal in my journal for the upcoming year (because I still had yet to do one) felt like a failure.

So, 13 years later, I wrote down the goal again. Just like I did for the marathon I was determined not to get too distracted. I started re-reading the triathlon books I bought years ago. I verbally told people I wanted to compete. I’d tell clients about what’s involved in this type of training while they warmed up. My boyfriend brought me to a bicycle shop to look around and ask for recommendations since I only had a dusty mountain bike at my parents’ house. I hopped on a boring Peloton once in awhile during the winter to get used to the quad burn and saddle sores again. I eventually got a YMCA membership after I moved so I could swim again, and I kept up my running.

Although the first half of 2024 my training was erratic between getting sick and moving, I finally signed up 2 months before the race after attending an ocean swim clinic that nearly gave me a panic attack. You don’t grow as a person if you don’t get out of your comfort zone, and I was not going to let the dark ocean scare me away from something I know I can do. I like to live #spontaneouslystrong and a triathlon was the next test for me.

If you’d like to live #spontaneouslystrong and are looking for a human (and part mermaid) coach, fill out the Book a Session form to get started on your own fitness journey!