Here’s a guest post from Swim Bike DUDE, Felipe, who (along with his wife) are in the homestretch to Ironman Texas on May 18th…just a short time away. Good luck Felipe!

…Hi everyone, Felipe here!

Regardless of who you are— a dad, a mom, a single dude, a single duddette, a married couple with no kids or with pets–pretty much this whole idea of a triathlon can be daunting for anyone. Think about an Ironman and it will get really DAUNTING… well, we are on our road to what will be our first full Ironman on May 18th at Ironman Texas.

For starters, we have seen SBM posts about how many of us mortals have real jobs, significant others, homes to take care of, lawns to mow, laundry to do, kids to take care of…. Now add a Ironman training plan to the mix and things get really interesting. Often, it would be easy to find a lot of excuses like —we have hectic jobs, lives or just too tired to not do it—-but the reality is, that someone out there busier than you is actually training for these races—-so why not give it a try and go for it?

My wife and I got hooked, like many of you, to this triathlon thing not too long ago. We went from running a few 5Ks and riding our bikes for a few miles to doing a 70.3 in about 10 months when we did 70.3 Austin. Then just to add on to it, we had this great idea (more like crazy idea) that we would sign up for our first Ironman without even completing our first 70.3.

We finished our first 70.3, in one piece, despite having a crash 2 weeks before it when I went down and my wife who was behind me run me over with her bike, only a few road rashes later and a visit to the ER to clear our heads from any concussions and we were on our way to conquer our first 70.3. We had a blast, and that was our only purpose (besides finishing it)—-yes, we were in pain from our bruises and rashes, not denying that, but our purpose was not to kill our selves out there or crush any course records, for us was the joy of doing this together and sharing the moment. What better than sharing the finish together, that was pricesless… coming down the shute we don’t remember anything, we were just holding hands (her more like dragging me to the finish line) but just full of happiness of finishing this which in our minds or anyone’s mind seems crazier than anything.

After returning from IM 70.3 Austin we had a few weeks of break to recover, relax, catch up with home stuff before we entered Ironman training.

That was back in December, fast forward 6 months, numerous laps in the pool, hundreds of miles on the trainer (due to winter weather) and outside on the later months, and many miles on the running shoes, we are now only a week away from jumping in the waters of Lake Woodlands to start what will be our first Ironman with 2000 of our closest triathlon friends or 2000 crazier people than us. These 6 months have been definitely interesting in many ways.

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One of the things that I’m grateful for is to be able to share this experience with my wife, who gladly pushes me out of the bed (literally) in the mornings to drag our butts to the pool or to the living room where we have our trainers. Also, I’m grateful that we inspire each other and keep each other sane. It is true what they say that you need “2 to tango.” In our case, we have been able to make a team out of our journey. We don’t consider this my journey or her journey, we consider this our journey.

…It hasn’t been easy, lots of joys as when we reach new limits never thought of before, like riding 100 miles with limited stopping to simulate race day, or swimming the race distance for the first time at the lake knowing that we can do this within the 2:20 limit, or thinking that we can run a full marathon after 112 miles of biking (that’s yet to be seen, stay tuned on May 18th to find out). On my side, it has been a journey of being an asmathic kid who couldn’t even run 100m without popping out the inhaler—to being able to train my body and brain to endure and not to give up.

Talking about juggling things, I will admit, I don’t know how you parents, moms, dads, single or married do it. Hats off to you.

Putting 15, 16, and some weeks 22 hours of training seems insane to not only whoever is looking at you doing it, but can’t imagine if you have soccer practices, dance lessons, softball, beisball, whatever your kiddos are into, so you are not a selfish parent just thinking on your journey. We shamely sometimes struggled and it was just the two of us with our corporate jobs. Lost a few friends on the way because they couldn’t hang out with us either on the bike or while running  or swimming (just kidding), but social life just becomes extremely limited, and you probably guessed it right, your friends just don’t understand you unless they are triathetes, note I say triathletes because any friend that does only one of the 3 will still call you crazy, I have a few that have, and yes like most of you, our world kinda goes around triathlon, even when we try to not make it go around it, it just gravitates there for some odd reason.

Even thought we love our new tri life, and things are going well for us. I’ve noticed that a lot of times we suffer of lack of motivation. That’s when having a teammate/soulmate to help you and push each other comes handy. Long days of work can turn into no training days really easy, or simply just sore from the previous day can turn into “I’m in pain, let’s not train” but when one of us gets to that zone we just pull each other out of it (like kicking each other out of bed for a 4 am trainer bike ride to nowhere).

Also, we always remember something someone told us on one of our first tri’s when were were newbies, we have to remember that  we don’t get paid for this— we pay to do this–so we have to make sure we enjoy our journey and make it the best journey. Yes, we compete, and yes, we want to be faster and better… but to a point–we don’t want to become pros, nor quit our good paying jobs to do this—in the meantime, let’s enjoy it and have fun and continue making money so we can buy more triathlon toys! 🙂

So in the meantime we will continue our journey …become an IRON couple on May 18th before midnight!!

2 Responses

  1. Thanks so much for sharing our blog on your page!! We have enjoyed following you and it’s been an amazing journey!! Ready to enjoy our first 140.6! 🙂

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