The joy and accomplishment I had at my first triathlon can be summed up with this photo.

With that joy and accomplishment came pain and suffering but all that went away when I crossed the finish line. It was a long journey and after finishing the race, I am finally able to call myself a Triathlete.

The race started off with a long 950 meter swim. The count down to swim start was excruciatingly long. I could feel my stomach turning inside out and I could literally feel my motion sickness kicking in again. After throwing up at sea in my last attack at multi-sports, every chance I get to jump in the water has been a battle inside my head. It was a war between throwing up and letting motion sickness kick in and myself. I just hope this phobia goes away soon.

After a few more minutes, our age group was gunned off and it was pure chaos. It was hard to swim with nearly more than 50 other guys swimming along beside you. It was kick or be kicked in the pool. Joel advised me not to push myself too hard in the swim but the rush with the other swimmers made me push myself to the limit.I could not have imagined myself swimming with a group this big. It was a good thing that we always practice mass starts in our swim nights with the team. Thank you guys for training me. The first 7 laps were the hardest. I had to share the lane with a lot of other swimmers and it somehow made my swimming a bit cramped and conservative. I guess that helped a little in not burning myself out.

On completing the 7th lap, I got out of the pool and dived right back in.

That was my best dive of my career. I looked stupid and it hurt when I landed but it felt good. I passed some other swimmers and I could feel that I wasn’t sharing a lane with other guys anymore. I kept my pace and I slowly but surely finished the 950 meter swim in 23 minutes. I ran to transition and made my way to my bike. I was happy to see that not everybody from my age group hasn’t left yet. I put on my bandanna, helmet, race belt, and then my cleats and I was off. I was on my bike faster than you could say ‘fuji roubiax 2.0′.

I wanted to bike hard and finish strong. At the level I was at last Sunday, I could say that I did fairly well. It was 3 rounds on the ocho-ocho loop around AAV and it was a joy. Everybody was saying that the course was really confusing and I dreaded the day because of fears of getting lost. I wouldn’t want my good swim time go to waste and get lost in the bike leg so I took it easy on the first loop. As soon as I finished my first loop, I pushed harder on the next two. There was a strong incline that really slowed me down which brought me to the brink of standing on my bike to pedal harder but I resisted. I didn’t want my legs to get shot come run time. My time for the 30 kilometers was pretty decent but it was still slow compared to the other guys in my age group. I finished the bike in 70 minutes. Not bad if I compare that to my last bike race in Powerade.

That’s me coming out of transition. I love running and my photos from the event when I was running shows how much I enjoyed it. It was a 7 kilometer run that separated me from the title of triathlete. Part of me wanted to run hard in the first kilometer to end the race fast but there was a fear that I might not reach the finish line because I ran too hard. It was a long hard climb at the first few kilometers of the run.

I felt sluggish and tired and I felt like I wouldn’t finish with in my target of 2 hours 30 minutes. Things slowly started to pick up when I got over the small hill. After a few more kilometers I saw a fellow age grouper who was struggling, I passed him. I saw another one, and I passed him too. I remember last year’s Kona Ironman, a video of which I gather lot of of inspiration from, where Craig Alexander over took those guys of smoked him on the bike and I felt like him. I was over taking guys from my age group and it felt good. I probably overtook four guys from my age group and it was euphoric. It really felt like a race and not just another fun run.

I continued my pace until I reached the finish line. I clocked in my run at a little over 40 minutes.

Crossing the finish line was a feeling that I could not fully comprehend. It was a mix of both exhaustion and accomplishment. It was a like finishing and passing an accounting exam. It was like completing my first fun run. It was like all those things but more because now, I could call myself a triathlete.

See you on the next race guys.