As I begin to look forward to next summer's race season, I also realize another Olympic year is coming. London 2012 will mark triathlon's fourth appearance in the Olympics, as well as Simon Whitfield's. It's crazy to think how far our sport has come in the last 12 years. Back in 2000, my parents went and watched the women's race on tv with other Triathlon Manitoba members. It was a disappointment, as none of our women did especially well. Then came the men's race. Not much was expected, as Canada only had one guy in it. Then bam, gold medal. History. Unfortunately for all those triathletes they had not picked the right race to watch as a group. But fortunately for an almost 6 year-old girl, she happened to be sitting with her parents on the basement couch watching this race. At least that's how I like to think the story goes. For some reason I don't remember physically sitting on that couch watching it, but my parents think I must have sat through it. I do however, remember acknowledging the basics of the situation. Olympics, Sydney, triathlon, gold, Canada, exciting. Good enough.
Let's backtrack one more year now. Pan Am Games in Winnipeg 1999. Again, my memory is somewhat failing me. The triathlon was held at Bird's Hill Park. I remember standing in the familiar parking lot, knowing a big race was happening. Obviously I had no clue who Simon Whitfield was at that point. Let's face it: no one really did. This was one of his first big accomplishments, and he was quite young then. So I don't remember anything about the people racing or anything. But I remember the parking lot and the bleachers set up there. For some reason I seem to have a memory of Opa standing there as a volunteer in his salmon Pan Am Games jacket. This was still the nineties, and apparently people considered salmon to be an attractive colour. I have been told that no, Opa didn't volunteer at this event, he did at a different race the year before (but come on, how would I remember 1998?) and he had no such attractive salmon jacket. Oh well, so much for that memory. I still want to check into this situation a bit more though. One positive though is that I have signed pictures from both Simon Whitfield and Sharon Donnelly from this event. They are on the wall next to the treadmill and have helped gotten me through many dull long runs when it was just too cold to run outside. I hate long runs in winter. (Sidenote: best piece of advice I ever got was written by Sharon Donnelly on this signed picture... "Follow your dreams and keep it fun." That I have been doing, thank you.)
Now time to share my first memory as a triathlete. People often ask, how long have you been doing triathlon? Forever. Oh ok, but when did you actually start? I hate this question. I do not remember life without triathlon, but people don't really understand that. So I say... Well, I've been training with MNTC for two years now, before that I trained with the Youth Team for two years, before that I trained with other small groups and before that I didn't train, I just did Kids of Steel races for fun. Oh yeah, and I did tykes and trikes before that. Which is literally what it sounds like. Back to my original answer: forever.
So first memory: I am at Bird's Hill Park. The race started with running through some ankle deep water at the beach. Then I rode my "bike" on a path. Now I am running across the parking lot from where the path ended to the other side, where I can see the finish line banner. It seems so far away. I am running as hard as I can and I am so tired. I see Desiree in front of me. I can't catch her, she will beat me. She always does. I finally cross the finish line. It's the same one Kids of Steel uses. We also get the same prizes, they even say Kids of Steel on them. I feel so proud. It's almost like I'm included with those big kids. I can't wait until I'm old enough to actually be in Kids of Steel. (Sidenote: 'back in the day' there was no 6-7 year-old category. I had to wait until I was "8-9" to do KOS which was actually age 7 for me because I had a late birthday, but still. Also they have since shortened the course, which is kind of disappointing. I survived. Kids can be tough. Oh well. It is sooo cute to watch now though. My children will definitely do this.)
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