5th season.... how did we get here????

The other day Res and I were doing the math about how many years we have been doing triathlons. We couldn't believe when we actually figured out that we had been at it for 5 years. We can remember it like it was yesterday. We remember that first workout when in a cold February morning (not as cold as our February mornings in NY), we met the IronTex crew.

We were so intimidated by all. Most of them were training for IMTexas and also for IM70.3Texas and they all seemed so fast and "legit". We sucked big time that day... and many more after that. We didn't know what we were doing, still don't a lot of times but we didn't care that day...we still don't care now. We just knew that day that we were hooked to something we didn't know a whole lot about and that we were going to have to work pretty darn hard to get to be somewhat descent and actually start and finish races without dying. We remember that first run.... longest ever run we had done, we had to walk so much. We didn't stop, coach Mike told us to go to a point on the trail and return and we just followed most of everyone while we could and then just stayed together the rest of the time. Took us like 1 hour to do a 4-5 mile run, but we felt like we had just conquered the world, longest run before that was a 5k (a few years prior to that). We felt amazing and everyone was so encouraging to us, of course while they were lapping us because most of them had a much longer run. We didn't care, intimidated and all, we said we will get better and see what we need to do to get where they are. We thought we were in shape... err.. we weren't even close to be in shape. We then went to swim, again, I hadn't swam laps in like 10 years or more, so needless to say, the first 100 yds I thought I was going to drown.... not really but pretty close. Res was just trying to hang and do her best too. Having the swimming background I had, I hadn't forgotten a lot of the technique but I super rusty. Coach corrected a few things, taught us a few others and off we went to take a long nap. Our bodies were exhausted like if we were little kids who had just played all day long, only difference it was only 10 am and we were already taking a long nap. The next day we decided to come out a ride our bikes with them. Luckily we were in a bit better shape for riding, we had taken riding about a year and half before we took on triathlon so we knew a bit more what to expect there, but again we were still rookies. Our bikes weren't fancy or anything, they weren't from Walmart either, but they all had fancy bikes, tri-bikes, carbon bikes. However, we didn't feel as intimidated as the first day, and we were able to hang with a big group that day... of course the fast ones were long gone before we knew it, but we were with a nice group so we stuck with them.

Anyways... that was just our first weekend of trying out this whole new world.... we finished the weekend feeling like we had the world to conquer ahead of us, and talked more with Mike... before we knew it we had a couple races in our schedule and an actual coaching plan. We are so thankful that we made that decision to have a coach. We didn't even know where to begin. Of course the rest is history, fast forward 5 years and a few races later we have accumulated a lot of miles in all 3 sports, have friendships that we not only consider friends, we consider family and no matter the distance (they are in TX and we are in NY) they are always there. We feel like we have learned a lot but there is so much more to learn. Now that I'm a coach, I use my coaching as a way to give back, as a thank you to those who once were so patient with us to teach us, show us the ropes and share their experiences with us, now it is our turn. I know I don't know it all as a coach, like I've said it before, I am probably not near any of the coaches that spend all their lives learning about the human physiology and sports, I use my own experiences and also what I've learned through the years being coached as a kid, and as an adult to help others grow and hopefully meet their goals.

So... 5 years... hoping for many more, We will continue our journey, a journey of learning, sharing, having some fun while at it doing what we love now. It is our lifestyle now and we are glad that we have learned to balance our lives so it doesn't consume us. It is part of our lives but not our life. In this lifestyle it is so easy to get sucked into the racing every weekend, that thrill of accomplishing goals and a lot of times you want to accomplish them all at once. It is like you don't have enough weekends to do everything you want to do. We have learned that our bodies, wallets, and life in general need a break from the whole swim, bike, run. There is family, houses to take care of, mental breaks to be had, and simply we keep reminding ourselves we do this for FUN... we don't get paid to do this... we pay to do this, so might as well we do it to have some FUN.

I guess all I have to say now is.. let's make our 5th season in the sport a badass one... that's why our IG has a #Badass2017 on most of our post. We are trying to be smarter about our racing, training and whole life balancing thing. Commutes from work changed a bit earlier this year so again, trying to find that right balance and training for our A race @ Ironman Lake Placid while staying motivated with the winter days it's been a challenge, but looks like finally we are in a routine and figured out pool schedules, gym, bike times and runs.... all while still feeding ourselves, taking care of our furbaby, the house, shoveling/blowing the driveway when it snows, and you know.. spending some quality time together in between #NotAllAboutTraining.