Did Not Finish

This weekend marks the one year anniversary of my first ever... and hopefully only ever DNF at a triathlon. Though I want to forget that it ever happened... it's soemthing that will live with me.

The race was the International Triathlon Union Long Distance World Championships in L'Orient France. L'Orient was a beautiful little town on the Brittany Coast of France. The swim was a two looper in a salt water bay that fed into the Atlantic Ocean... the bike was a two looper that went through town to then parallel the Atlantic Ocean... the run a four looper through town. I still remember the whole experience... the whole week... and the race post and pre DNFing. The swim was short of 2 miles. I came out in just a minute over 1 hour... tore the wetsuit off... and headed down transition to get my bike. The bike started on a nice little climb right after the dismount line... and it was tough. I made it through town and got out to where we paralleled the coast when things went wrong. I heard my aero water bottle screaching on my wheel. I kept pulling it up and the next thing I knew it kept screaching again. Finally it happened my handlebars started to lean over... which clearly meant trouble on my part. I had no tools due to the fact they were in my car back at the airport in Dallas. There was no support via any other athlete, spectator, or personel of the race... which meant there was only one thing to do... pull out. It was tough... but I ended up making the right decision. The same thing happened to another guy on Team USA... ended up crashing during the second loop... DNFing with an injury from the crash. After hearing that I knew I made the right decision... it wasn't my day... and thats how I have looked at it since.

Since the DNF a year ago... I learned many lessons from that horrible day... where the clouds hung over my head all week and race day. People felt bad for me... I told them to get over it. The DNF made me a stronger triathlete... and most importantly helped to go farther and harder to earn my MDot a montgh ago.

I still wear my Team USA shorts, shirt, and hat proudly... becuase even though I let my country down by pulling out... how many people have a chance to represent their country in this wonderful sport?

I hope to never have to DNF again... but if it does happen... I know how to handle it this time!

More to come...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Celebrating Myself

Image
Something Special Was Going To Happen I'm a little late to post (I was hoping to get it done over the weekend but life happened) this very exciting blog post but here it is. Sometime during my 2022 Season of Triathlon and Taking Running Seriously (Season 18) I started to think how amazing it was that through all the good and not so good seasons; I was still training for and completing races in the sport. There were so many moments in which I thought I'd take a break or even just completely leave the sport(s) all together BUT if you know me I don't give in or give up easily. I started thinking about how my 20th season in 2024 would come quickly and I wanted a way to celebrate such a massive and huge accomplishment of longevity in the sport. I started thinking about doing a custom design for a triathlon kit and possibly a run tank to wear proudly during my 2024 Season. Before the start of my 2023 Season (Season 19); I had picked which triathlon apparel company I was going to
Read more

My I Can Do Hard Things Swimming Edition

Image
I would have never imagined that the 200 butterfly would become my all time favorite go to masters swim meet event. As a young reluctant swimmer; joining a local summer league swim team in Maryland in 1993, I had the hardest time learning to swim breaststroke. Once my breaststroke was legal; I swam it at swim meets, it became my go to swim meet stroke. But  now the question was; how would I learn to swim butterfly? I loved how graceful butterfly was but didn't take the initiative to learn the stroke until my second or third summer swimming; which would have been 1994 or 1995. I learned how to swim the butterfly but was nervous to swim it; especially at swim meets of any kind whether on summer league (while still living in Maryland), at both year round club and high school swim meets (both when I was in Texas) so I never swam it. It wasn't until the mid 2000s when I was swimming on masters (age 18 and over) swim teams that I started to think about conquering my fear of swimming
Read more

Coming Up...

Image
In many ways oh so soon! First up USA Triathlon Nationals in Milwaukee WI. In T-Minus (gulp) 9 days I'll be swimming .9 miles aka 1500 meters aka 1.5km in a protected area of Lake Michigan. But for those who know me well; I'll be swimming more than a mile because LOL I can't swim straight and follow the buoys and to add to that I have to breathe to my right which NO WAY Jose isn't what I do best. After the swim portion; I'll take off my swim cap and goggles; put on my bike helmet, sunglasses, socks, bike shoes on before I un-rack Zoom 2.0 and we head out for a nice and (hopefully crossing your fingers) speedy and fast 25 miles aka 40km bike through the streets of Milwaukee. I've heard from those who've down Nationals in Milwaukee in past years that the course is fast (minus all the sharp u-turns for turnaround points) and it's mostly flat (minus this bridge we go over). After I get off Zoom 2.0; I'll head back to transition, take off my helmet and bi
Read more