After my first triathlon race my Mom and I were talking about how far I'd come this past year and just all that I had accomplished. In looking back I have done so much this year like: helped lead a small group, wrangle horses, operate a ropes course, run my first 5k, run my 1st 10k (DirtyChai Relay) and run my first triathlon. If you told me a year ago I would have accomplished all that I would have told you to "Shut the front door!" Christ has blessed me with such great opportunities to prove myself to others and to myself. I wish I had the time and energy to describe all the learning experiences I had, but I don't want you to get bored too fast...so you can ask me.
So how did I just into such a, difficult sport you might ask? It started in January after I picked up some casual running, through the help of my awesome small group, which was called DirtyChai(DC), we decided to run the Knoxville Marathon Relay, so we signed up and I haven't stopped since. If you're thinking about running your first race the first thing to do is sign up no matter if you're ready or not, thats what motivated me so much to train. I trained with a Hal Higdon 10k plan for 8 weeks. The week before the race I did a 5k just to get the feel of my first race which was great, my favorite part was the start when I was running down Volunteer Blvd and we were being led by a Police Car, just seeing this mass group made me excited. I did great too I got a PR(umm Duh, Andy it was your first race), - thats not the point, I beat my goal by 1:20 and finished 24th with a time of 24:40. The next week our DirtyChai Team - Myself, Melissa, Sam and Christie, ran in the Knoxville Covenant Health Marathon...lets just say week did great even with it raining cats and dogs on Sam, we did it in 4 hours and 3 mins and placed 16th in our division. We had some fun times during that race...I remember looking over at Mal and Sam as Christies was running up and just threw up the most nervous look as they took a picture of me haha. I was truly nervous, I don't know why I just was, I think it was the Noelton Drive hill that I was most scared of, but I conquered it easily. My favorite part though was just running through the finish line all four of us together and hearing Dirty Chai announced in Neyland Stadium, and to make it even better Mallory and Kelly were there to great us with some legit signs, I was impressed how dedicated they were to stand in the rain and watch us come through the finish.
So...Triathlons....well hmm after the relay, I was proud of what we did, but something wasn't right. I realized I was truly missing the whole...God aspect of the sport, and yes that is a huge part of it. I just felt like I did all of this, it was me that trained, it was me that dealt with the pain and the overtraining...me me me. I was always like what's next for ME to do, what can I prove to people that I could do. I wanted to show people that, despite my size, I can do something people say "wow you did that." This attitude did not settle well for the sport nor my spiritual life. After reading a blog by Ryan Hall about how he runs for Christ and to Glorify Him. I was really just hit hard, it was one of those spiritual moments where you get slapped in the face with a cricket bat. So from then on running and tri's have been all being able to do it cause Christ has given me the strength. So I decided my next challenge would be triathlons, since running is not my strong point I thought this would be a great sport cause I used to swim and I do the occasional mountain bike...so it made perfect since. And thats all she wrote about how I got into these sports. I started training with my friend Kim with no program, but once I moved home for the summer I joined the Fleet Feet Team to train for the summer in hopes to get ready to race with Tri Vols in the Fall.
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