He runs his first triathlon, gets his butt kicked but pledges to come back for more
When I ran the first triathlon of my life in June at the age of 41, I flew the GeezerJock colors. I wore my gray wicking T-shirt with the magazine logo emblazoned on the front. The back of the shirt posed a brash question to those behind me: “Can you keep up?” The answer to that query was, emphatically, “Yes!”
Not only could my competitors in the Lake Mills (Wis.) Triathlon keep up on June 4, but members of the geezerjock nation in their 40s, 50s and 60s passed me in the water, on the bike course and on the running trail.
I like to think of myself as a good athlete. I can throw a football 50 yards. I have a reliable jump shot. And when I played golf regularly, I had a single digit handicap. But the sprint triathlon was a humbling experience.
In the 40-44 age bracket, I placed 65th of 66 competitors, finishing the 400-meter swim, 15-mile bike and 5- kilometer run in 1:44:04. Since it was my first triathlon, I probably belonged in the novice bracket, but even there my time would have placed me, by my calculations, 25th of 28 entrants.
Swimming in open water proved to be more difficult than I thought. The 64-degree water in Rock Lake seemed to prevent air from getting to my lungs. Gasping for breath, I abandoned the freestyle and swam breaststroke much of the way. When I stumbled out of the water, I was already spent.
On the bike, I gathered myself and quickly passed four competitors, but then wave after wave of cyclists showed me their rear tires. Without sounding ungrateful, I probably was at a disadvantage on my borrowed mountain bike compared with the road bikes most of the triathletes rode. Nonetheless, the mountain bike was beautiful, miles better than the one I trained on, a Huffy circa 1962 with balloon tires.
My run — if you could call it that — was quite slow. When I was able to run at a reasonable pace, some fellow competitors called out encouragement as I passed them. I would have responded if I’d had the strength to speak.
For vanity’s sake, I marshaled all of my energy to run hard the last half mile when the crowd around the finish line came into view.
If that sounds like a bad experience, it wasn’t. Even though I’ve never been much of an endurance athlete, I’m hooked on triathlon.
Initially, I entered this triathlon out of obligation. I wanted to show my support for our GeezerJock in Training team, so I agreed to sign up for the Lake Mills Triathlon. I also wanted to walk the walk of Masters sports — instead of just writing the write in this magazine.
In preparing for the triathlon, I fell in love with cross training. I began working out in mid-March, adding biking and swimming to my occasional runs. I suspected — and knew for sure in my bones and muscles during the last mile of the 5k — that my training wouldn’t be sufficient to run a good race.
But even if my performance didn’t measure up against others in the race, I know that I’ve improved immensely in the past 10 weeks and that cross training has produced my best running times in years. I know if I train harder, I’ll do better next time. Maybe 64th place?
One more thing: If editing this magazine has taught me anything, I know I can get better even if I am getting older. I have a lifetime ahead of me in which to improve. I know that because of people like Austin Newman, a retired lathe operator who lives in Toms River, N.J. I ran across Newman while working on a small story about the U.S. Masters Swimming Short Course (Yards) National Championships. I saw that he set a record in the 500-yard race, swimming that distance in a shade over 10 minutes. Which is faster than me. And he’s 90 years old.
At first, I found that news terribly discouraging. But after thinking it over, I was buoyed by the news. If I’m lucky, I might have 50 years to keep working on triathlon.
I called Newman, who started swimming competitively at age 55, and asked him for some advice. Here’s what he told me, “If you try to hurry up and swim, you don’t swim fast. Your stroke is shortened and you don’t complete the stroke. In swimming you’ve got to have a good finishing stroke to get where you want to go.”
Sounds like wisdom to me. I may even take a swimming lesson, my first in 30 years. I’ll probably invest in a decent road bike. I’m going to do another sprint triathlon and soon. Oh yeah, and I’m going to swim 500 yards in less than 10 minutes.
Cycling
