This is the prepared version of a speech I gave at Toastmasters a couple weeks ago.
I’m signed up to do the Tri the Illini triathlon at the beginning of October, and I wanted to talk about why.
Two years ago the occasional pain I got in my calves when I ran turned into an every run thing. And when I stopped running and just walked instead, it turned into an every walk thing. After far too many months, I talked to my doctor and discovered that I walk on the outsides of my feet, which puts strain on the outsides of my calves. I soon ended up with orthotics and stretching exercises that eliminated the pain.
Once I could run again, I didn’t want to risk another injury, so I wanted to limit my running to twice a week. That meant I had to find something else to do on the other days. While my legs had been hurting, I had decided it was time I tried swimming again.
Back in grad school a friend had convinced me to sign up for swimming lessons with her. That was the first time I’d swum, not just played around in the water, since fourth grade when my mom signed my brother and me up for the community swim team. So I didn’t remember much about swimming properly. But I learned how to breathe right, turning my face to the side instead of lifting my head up. Then I left grad school and didn’t have easy access to a pool–and let’s face it, compared to being outside and running through the woods or prairie or even down suburban streets, going back and forth and back and forth is pretty boring.
Once I tried swimming again, it came back quickly. I took a refresher class, and starting swimming twice a week at the Urbana pool.
So now I was swimming and I’d been biking for transportation for awhile. I’d still rather have been running. So I thought, how can I keep myself motivated to swim and bike instead?
Well, that same friend who’d talked me into swimming class also talked me into doing a triathlon. We did a Danskin women’s triathlon in Massachusetts in 2001. I came in second to last in my age group, if I recall correctly, but I finished. And then I never did another one. I didn’t own a bike–I’d borrowed one that didn’t fit well for the race–and I’d stopped swimming.
But that one race was fun. So when I was looking for a way to keep myself swimming and biking, I started looking for triathlons in the area. And I discovered the Tri the Illini race, which is conveniently on campus, so I don’t have to get up insanely early to drive. The best part is, the swim is in a pool.
My last triathlon was in a lake. If you’ve ever done an open-water swim, you might know why I’m happy about the pool–there are lanes.
We’re going to swim in a serpentine pattern, down one lane, up the next, down the one after that, and so on. When you swim in a lake, there are no lanes. It’s a free for all. If you’re not careful about where you start, people will swim right into you. Or over you. Imagine swimming as fast as you can, you can’t see anything because lake water is murky, seaweed is snarling around your feet, and you can’t breathe because turning your head to the side just puts your face into the spray churned up by the guy next to you.
That is not the fun part of the race.
Now I imagine even in a pool there are going to be problems. But even if someone swims into me and I end up tangled In a lane line or swallowing so much water that I have to quit the race, I’ll be happy. Because the race has served its purpose.
I’ve been swimming and biking regularly, and running regularly too, on legs that don’t hurt. Even if I follow my current interest and get really into tennis, I’m already setting a goal to shoot for next fall that will keep me swimming and biking–beating my time in this year’s triathlon.