Then and Now

This summer marks my 11th year of doing triathlons.  I come from a bit of a running background in high school where I was on both the track and cross country teams.  I ran the 400 and 800 because the 1600 and 3200 was just too damn long.  I only ran XC because some of my friend from track ran and it also helped me stay fit for track but that "long" 5k was never my favorite.  I checked out of running, and athletics in general, after high school except for playing some recreational ultimate frisbee, soccer, and beach volleyball in grad school.  I was still pretty fast zipping around the field but I certainly wasn't particularly fit.

Check out the beach body on grad school Joel

After grad school I moved to VA Beach for a job and joined a gym for something to do after work. I didn't know anyone and didn't have much else to do with my free time so I started lifting 5 days a week.

Behold 198lb gym rat Joel

Eventually I met some people and found the Hash House Harriers and got back to recreational running.  It was non-competitive, fun, and a nice change from the same old gym scene every day.  I did some 5k and 10k races and enjoyed running but got a little bored with just running so I decided to give triathlon a shot, which is what brings me to the original point of this blog post.  My first ever triathlon was Breezy Point sprint in 2004.  I had a road bike, bought a pair of tri shorts the day before at packet pick up, and sported a cotton tank top. I remember side stroking most of the swim because freestyle was so exhausting but don't really remember anything else about the race. I finished 250/527 overall and 26/48 in my age group with a time of 1:28:27.

2004 Breezy Point sprint - first triathlon

I think I've only done Breezy Point once again over the past 10 years because I don't like sprints and don't particularly like this course. Last year it was actually canceled due to security concerns (it's held entirely on Naval Station Norfolk) and was in danger of being gone for good until the Tidewater Striders who technically own the race approached Final Kick Sports to see about bringing it back this year.  Jim Golden did a great job as the new race director and Breezy Point is back.  I decided to race it this year to help support the cause and also represent Final Kick Tri club. So how does the "now" compare to the "then"?  Well, I hadn't been training all that consistently this spring and only decided to race 2 days out so this isn't a race I was particularly prepared for but I finished 4th overall in 1:05:56.  I can't get the photo browser for the race to work so you'll just have to imagine this one :)

So that's a quick history of my tri career from my first race in 2004 through early 2015. I skipped a lot though...like how did I go from thinking my girlfriend was crazy for running 13.1 miles to racing the Ironman World Championships?  I'll save that for another post.