Back to my Roots

Happy Happy Friday, friends!  What's in store for your weekend?  The hubster and I will be racing a nice area tri on Sunday, the Sodus Point sprint triathlon.  This tri is near and dear to us for several reasons. 

Back in 2005, when we were a newly dating, this was our first triathlon. The hubster's brother in law did Ironman Lake Placid that year and it inspired the hubster to do a tri.  When he told me of his plans, I thought...well, why not?  So I told him I would do it with him.  I'm not really a sit n watch kinda girl.

Thus ensued the hilarity.  See, I hadn't been on a bike in 10 years easily, and I ran one season of cross country in high school because I thought a guy on the team was cute and I wanted to date him (it didn't work).  So I bought a 50 dollar target bike, a pair of running shoes, and a helmet and gave myself a 6 week crash course in training.

The first ride the then boyfriend now hubster took me on, I crashed into him at the first intersection (no, I was not wearing clip less peddles.)

I called a 20 minute run a "long run" and walked more than half of it.

I could not would not put my head in the water and timed myself at 28 minutes for a half mile swim.

Regardless, on August 19th, 2005, I toed the (really wavy) line at the Sodus Swim start, shaking in my non existent boots. 

Of course, this was what would be known as the "epic" race in the Rochester area.  No, not for the scenery.  For the 3 to 4 foot waves that caused them to pull one third of the participants out of the water during the swim.  Awesome first tri. lol.  But I kept my little (then reduced to) dog paddling self alive and made it out of the water intact in order to tackle the 13 mile bike and 5k run. 

Some things are just meant to be!

2 hours and one minute after depositing my breakfast into Lake Ontario (oh yes I did), I crossed the finish line of my first tri.  With the hubster (then boyfriend).  Yup.  We finished together...and the neat part was, neither one of us held back to do it!

Since then, we have become quite the adventurous triathletes, growing into Olympic Distances, Half Irons and full Irons, but every year we return to thei quaint family friendly triathlon, ready to have a great time.  In the 6 years that we've done it, we have crossed the finish line together 3 times, I've won my age group twice, and placed two other times.  I've also brought my time down from 2:01 in my first tri to 1:22 in 2009...my sprint PR (and it's not an easy course! :-P) (Fun note-in 2009 we did this race one week post wedding and wrote "Just married" on our calves).

 But regardless of PR's or placing, this little tri remains near and dear to my heart because it started out as a casual date between two people who were undefined, and grew into a race shared with a committed couple, an engaged couple, and now two old married farts a happily married couple!

  Sodus has magic.  It also has a crazy unpredictable Lake....from 3-4 foot waves (2005), a wicked long course (2008) and 52 degree temperatures (2010).  Who knows what this year will bring...but I do know it will be one more year where the Glaser's make a morning of it and remember why we love to "tri" and mostly, remember with fondness how we got where we are, both as athletes and as a couple.

2009-with our friend Bill!