Things that keep me going

Something I love about triathlon is how addictive it is, but also how contagious it is.  Since I've started and people in my life have watched me compete and grow, 3 people who are very close to me have done their first triathlon (one has done a second!) and 2 other people are training for them, because they watched me do them, love them, and want the amazing experience for themselves.  I love helping them and encouraging them, it brings me true happiness.  Training with people and watching them progress is amazing.  This is an email from one of my protege's after their first triathlon.  It makes me smile every time I read it..... He competed in his first triathlon after months of fun emails and facebook posts back and forth between us.  I mostly find this funny because it is so perfectly relevant to the new and experienced triathlete to go through these emotions and realizations.. Without further ado, a message from a close friend....

"Highlights and lowlights in my raceday recap.
Lowlights, 
1- Waking up to a flat rear tire on my bike...... 
2- Waking up at 5am....
3- Worrying about my flat tire and forgetting my light breakfast....
4- pre-race dump.... 
5-during the swim, the guy who kept zig zagging in front of me so I kept tickling his feet. 
5.5- The run to the transition and out of transition. What's up with that!
6- after the swim, struggling to get my muffin top on then having the pin rip out of my bib and costing me precious seconds to re pin. 
7- All the freakin' hill climbing in both the bike AND run! Didn't factor that into my training regimen. 
8- All the turns they put at the end of the bike course that slowed me down. 
9- Getting stopped by the transition warden (I call them the tranny cops) to tell me to do my helmet strap back up or I couldn't go put my bike up, costing me precious seconds to do up. 

Highlights 
1- Tubes for sale for $9 bucks at the event! Score....although now I need a new tire pump to pump up my rear tire... 
2- Pre race jitters. Anticipation is awesome.
 3- Doing the swim non-stop. Although I got passed by a bunch of Lises, who although they started three minutes after the men, still managed to pass me before the end of the swim.
 4- Passing many people on the bike portion and not getting passed. Passed a couple of those Lises that beat me at the swim as well! 
5- Going downhill and just flying, although I was kind of worried that my back tire was going to fly off due to my incompetent tire change, but it didn't so I was flying. 
6- Doing the run non stop, passing a few people and not getting passed! Yes!
 7- High fiving the volunteers, good one coach!
 8- At the water station when the water dudes asked me if I wanted water and I replied "No thanks, I have cold beer waiting at the finish line." They laughed, and yes, I had cold beer after my race....at 10 to 9 in the morning...
 9- Finishing the race. How sweet it was! 

Now I'm going to have to do a few more to beat this base time I have set for myself. I feel I could've squeezed some more out of myself on all 3 portions, but, I didn't know how to gauge how my body was going to feel later on...although I did giver pretty hard on the bike portion. So all in all, good times. Thanks coach, I'm no longer a try a tri virgin and know what I need to get done to get better. Then I can do a Sprint...then I can do a fully.....then I can do a half ironman....then I can do an ironman.....maybe not. I think I'll stick with the little guys for now!"

oh ya, did I mention my above friend placed third in age in his second race!! #proudcoachandfriend:)