2012 was a big year for us. We moved for the first time as a couple to San Antonio and decided we were going to find a way to get exercise to finally be a regular part of our life. Ed started with strength training and I got into about 10 hours a week of yoga, but something was still missing.
We got this idea to do a Spartan Race from our friends and participated in the Spartan Sprint in Burnet, TX in May. It was fun and I was grateful to have a tall husband who could throw me over walls, but it still wasn’t quite what we were looking for on a regular basis.
On the drive home from the Spartan Race, I found a Super Sprint in June in Georgetown, TX. 200 m swim/7 mi bike/2 mi run. It was perfect for beginners and boy were we beginners to triathlon. Ed had to learn how to not drown for 200 m and me, it was a mess. Results posted below for your enjoyment and to always remind me how far I have come in a short time period:
- 200 m swim – 1:54, ok I really haven’t actually improved too much on this.
- 7:30 T1 transition (worst in the entire race)!! Included me peeling on bike shorts, putting on sunscreen and trying to leave transition without a helmet.
- 28:26 bike (not too bad on a hybrid bike), 1:31 T2 and
- 23:30 run (with camel bak on, knee started hurting .25 into run).
Despite being terrible, we decided we loved it! We signed up for a TriWaco Sprint in July and since it was our first open water swim, found some swim lessons from Bree Soileau with Alamo 180. We thought she was awesome and the Alamo 180 team sounded awesome, so we joined up (me officially, Ed unofficially until 2013). It has been the best decision we could have made to improve quickly and have a blast doing it.
After TriWaco, we finished the year with races almost every 3 weeks:
- Alamo 180 Rock the Mock Sprint Tri – August
- TriRock Sprint Tri – Labor Day
- Kerrville Sprint Tri – Sept 30
- Rock n’ Roll San Antonio – my 1st Half Marathon and Ed’s first Full Marathon – November
- Palm Springs Olympic Tri – early Dec (Michelle only.. became obsessed with finishing my season with an Olympic. It was an awesome race!)
- HelofaDu – Mid Dec
Even though we only did half a season technically, we loved it and we are really looking forward to this season. We’ve already started the year with Half Marathons in January and we are training for our first Half Ironman in Marble Falls at the end of April! I look forward to sharing our challenges, successes, and other hilarious stories.
