How hard do you Tri?

How hard do you Tri?

At times we look at the best in sport and business to inspire us. The reality is the best in anything, have to put a large amount of time and sacrifice to be the best. When it comes to being a Mum of two boys 6 and 8, Sarah Sleeter doesn’t have that luxury. She has to manage a household with school drop off, pick up, house cleaning, meals 3 times a day and all of those other household duties that just take time.

Sarah finds it important for herself to have a goal to be motivated during those bike rides, runs, and early mornings at the pool. Sarah has done 7 triathlons in the last 10 years and with her two boys getting older and both in full time school, she has a little more time in the day to train. The Mission Bay Triathlon was the race she set for a goal this year and she wanted to beat her 2018 time and possibly land on the podium in her age group.

The Mission Bay Triathlon is the last Triathlon of the San Diego triple crown and the majority of the racers are seasoned, but there are also a large amount of new athletes competing in their first triathlon so the vibe is relaxed and encouraging to newbies

Race Day is here and Sarah is up at ten minutes to 5am and is having her breakfast. Oatmeal with peanut butter, a bagel, banana, and coffee. She stages her bike and shoes in transition at 5:30 am and does a quick swim to make sure her goggles are good and more importantly to get warmed up. It was time to go and the women’s 30-34 age group was ready to take off. They hit the water for the 500m swim and 10:31 seconds min later she’s out of the water and then on to the bike for the 12 mile loop. She gets through that in 33 min and now it’s on to the 5k run where she does in 25:51. She finished strong and was smiling the entire way just hoping that she had reached her goal of beating her last year’s race time. Once the results were in it was clear she had smashed her race times for 2018. She was 40 seconds faster in the swim, 5 min faster on the bike, and 30 seconds faster in the run. One important thing she took away was this year was she was a minute faster in all her transitions. The final standing were up and she had finished 7^thout of 56 women in her age group and 22^ndoverall out of 278 women.

Did she win? No, she did not, but she accomplished the goal she set out for herself and that what it’s all about. We all have different goals for many reasons. Life is tough, and it’s hard to balance everything as a parent. Sarah said it’s important for her boys to see her train and set goals for herself while still being “just Mum” to them. We couldn’t agree more and it’s encouraging seeing one of your own accomplish what they set out to do.

We encourage everyone that is scared to get out of their comfort zone to just set a goal and put some work in to accomplish it. Remember it’s your journey not the local pros, have fun smile and take care of that body of yours because it deserves it.