One Clydesdale’s Journey

My Wife, and of course my triathlon training partner!

That’s right; I got this crazy idea from my beautiful bride! And it only seems fitting to talk about this right now since she just signed up to do the Team in Training Olympic distance triathlon.

Shameless plug time; if you have a few moments and a few spare pennies please check out the link to her donation website right here or over in the blogroll.

Okay, back to her giving me this crazy idea;
Well it was sometime back in 2006 when she told me that she had been talking to Deb and some of the other nurses that she works with and she decided to do the Danskin triathlon. I, of course, thought she was nuts! Prior to this her idea of training for a triathlon consisted of… well, almost nothing!

She belonged to The WAC and she would go over there and swim laps from time to time. And in high school she was on the swim and dive team. But that was pretty much it.

In fact, she didn’t even own a bike!

And she hated to run! Oh wait, she still doesn’t exactly love it now.

But, being the supportive husband that I try to be at times, and since she already said that the training wouldn’t involve me, I told her that I was all for the idea.

So, after she bought a new pair of running shoes she informed me that she was going to take my bike in to get it tuned up. My bike?! I stressed to her that that bike hadn’t seen the road in at least 10 years. Not to mention that the frame is for someone my size and she is about a foot shorter.

But off she went to Johnson’s Cycle and Fitness to get it all tuned up. Plus some nice new clip less pedals and then some biking shoes and she was off riding.

I watched football or read or something like that…

Fast forward to the spring of ‘07 and now she is really starting to get into this whole training thing and decides that she needs a new bike. You know, one that actually fits her! So off we go to one of those big bike sales and get her a shinny new bike. Now that I have my bike back and working I start to ride a bit.

Fast forward to the Danskin and although she is ready to go and confident in her training, as she looks across the lake at the swim I could see the thought of doubt come over her. Well she got through the pre-race jitters and she completed the whole thing

I was impressed! As where my parents who had made the drive down to the event to watch her. And at the finish line my mom asks her if she will ever do that again. Now I thought about that question, but I was going to wait oh say a week or so before asking it. But she said yes!

And a couple of weeks later she was signed up to the Devils Lake triathlon. And it was there, at Devils Lake when she finished that I suddenly thought (out loud) that I might be interested in doing one of these. Emphasis on that word “might”!

Well, Shelly didn’t hear that word and the next thing I knew I was training!

Later,
John W.

A Clydesdale in training