Triathlon as a new sport at fifty

Today is a Tuesday so that, in mid winter means that there is a turbo session for my training today. Steve and I usually start turbo sessions at home at 6.30 am and did so this morning but I only did half the session because I had finally conned my friend Christine into agreeing to come over to our home and try a turbo session and I would do that with her. She is formally a runner and did her first marathon last year and on the run up to that, somehow or other ran into me and Steve. We added a few tips to help her get through her marathon and we both hope that our advice helped at bit.

Making contact with triathletes can be a bit like contracting some terrible disease and somewhere along the line; Christine decided that she might hold as an aim for 2017 the idea of trying a triathlon. The obvious logic stared her in the face on meeting me I think. Tick- tick-tick… Here is a woman who is 77 years old who can do a triathlon… I am years younger than she is… though not 21 any more… I am a runner….. I can swim, though have not for a while….. I can ride a bike…..anybody can ride a bike.

She came for a swim session and got a bit more enthusiastic and started swimming more regularly. Now she has a new bike. She has entered a sprint distance swim-run, The Frostbite in Littlehampton close to her home. She has entered a sprint distance triathlon a bit further away in a couple of months. That has a pool based swim, so a wetsuit purchase will not be necessary. Wetsuits are expensive. That can be left until after the first event to see if triathlon is something she may want to do again if she likes it. She has ordered a tri-suit…. There is a bit of commitment.

Triathlon is not a cheap sport to start up in but bit by bit you can get all you need and later on if you REALLY like it you can upgrade.

This morning Christine arrived mid morning to give a turbo session a go, and it went well enough considering that it was all a bit strange to a newcomer. She did not like the bike shoes, they were another shock but she was trusting enough to put on Steve’s shoes and get on his turbo bike, she is taller than me and that was better once Steve had change the saddle height a bit. I got on my bike to do the session with her. Steve had picked one of the Carmichael training system sessions.

I think she will love triathlon and it will suit her mind set because she is one of those people who works hard at whatever she does. There are things she will need to learn, like changing gear now and again, since even with me nagging just a bit she just hammered through and got tired because there was very little difference at the start between the work and the rest interval with her. We can work on that.

It is also very hard to run a home, work full time and train as much as you need. She has to fit everything in and feel that she is still giving enough of herself to her family that includes a 13 year old daughter as well as a non sporting husband. The balance is more than difficult, it is as big a challenge and I just hope that she can find a way through the woods to take something for herself in life. That should not be something you need to feel guilty about.

I know that I need to have time for myself, but it is so much easier for me because for a start, these days I am only working now and again doing a bit of office work, a few emails and collection lists and stuff, really much less than this woman is fitting in life as a police officer on shift work, a wife and mother and still trying keep a sense of humour. 

Life is not easy and things don’t always go the way you hope but if you keep your eye on the horizon, it does slowly get closer, and if you push on bit by bit, day by day, session by session and with just a little bit of support from those who love you, it’s all worthwhile.