Triathlon

Although Nigel and Emily only had 2 weeks’ holiday off school, we made our NZ holiday 3 weeks, in order to catch the annual Auckland woman’s triathlon. I did one 2 years ago, just over a year after Zoe’s birth, and the training for it helped me to get rid of the extra weight I had been carrying since pregnancy. I loved how fit I felt, and the race itself was great fun. This time, it was a year since Tessa’s birth, and definitely time to do a repeat.

My training regime this time around wasn’t quite as thorough as the last time, mainly because life in Manila is not as ‘outdoorsy’ as in New Zealand. We weren’t able to enjoy weeks of family bike rides, for example, as we didn’t have our bikes in Manila, and anyway, our new addition means that our family no longer fits on two bikes! Nigel and I did take up regular evening walking, however. On his part, he was training for a hike in the mountains, so it suited us both.

Mum was enrolled in the duathlon version of the event, which excludes the swim and replaces it with another walk. So the two of us also did some training together, on bikes, in the short time that we had in NZ before the event.

On race day, the whole family headed down to Okahu bay. We had a wonderful support crew of Pops, uncle Tony, Nigel and our 3 girls. Zoe and Emily had even made banners to wave which said “Go, Mum! Go, Grandma!” Each time we went through transition, we gave high-5s, and everybody cheered us on.

I caught up with Mum half way through the bike leg, and decided that the event would be much more fun if we stayed together, so we biked back and did the whole walk/run together to the finish line.

It was great fun, and both of us are already looking forward to next year’s event, which we have vowed to complete in under an hour.

Despite taking the training a little bit too ‘easy’, I have found that I am fitter, and have noticeably more energy. I even found myself wanting to go for a run around our village one day last week. So I did, and did again the day after that, and the day after that as well. It has certainly pushed me forward in the right direction.