experienced enough to guide me through a practice session. So instead I had to make due with two strategic approaches. First I would make sure I was trained in a pool environment to complete the distance effectively. Second, I would read up on what I was getting into.
My guide was, “Your First Triathlon,” by Joe Friel. One thing that started to unnerve me was how Joe began to talk about what a first time triathlete (and even an experienced one) will go through during their initial approach. He began by saying that in almost every race, there will be a hand full of people that turn back within the first few minutes and then he told us why.
It was a June morning that I stood with my bare feet in the sands at the starting point. The beach was crowded with over a thousand people. The sun was showing signs of peaking up above the horizon, but hadn’t quite made the commitment yet. The American national anthem was already sung, and wave one, the ELITE races, were already in the water swimming for a large inflated buoy way off in the middle of...