I really thought trail running was my Goldilocks Zone of sport. The perfect combination of difficulty, beauty, joy, and nature. I was happiest on the trails. At Any pace or any distance. Then injuries forced me to take a different route.

I have spent much of the past 4 years unable to run pain free if I could run at all. It forced me to change and adapt. To find new joys and passions to pursue and be fulfilled by. I still love trail running. And running will always be my happiest place. But now I have so much more to be thankful for.

And I owe a lot of it to my friends who have introduced other athletic endeavors to me and invited me to join them on adventures.

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I love taking on new challenges. And that is one of the things that I love about trail running in general is that depending on various factors like the weather and the trail conditions every run down a familiar trail can feel like anew adventure.

Aside from being on the road back from injury, it has been a long time since I have been at the start line and really wondered if I would be able to do it. Finish the race. Get it done. As I toed the line at the 2026 Finger Lakes Triathlon Canandaigua I had doubts.

Doubts that stemmed from being a beginner again. From being new. Seeing things for the first time. It has been a long time since I have been a beginner at anything that I really cared about. And I cared about this event. I wanted to finish. I had expectations of myself. And I wanted to accomplish my goals.

The Swim

What I did not realize is how much actual fear I had.

I am not a swimmer. This is the newest component of triathlon to me. I only began swimming in February 2026. I would have to train up to swim .9 miles for this triathlon. Which I had no idea if it was even a realistic expectation to think one could do. Go from zero yards swam to around 1800 yards.

But, I was going to find out.

I actually got comfortable in the pool after a while, especially once I could swim in the outdoor pools over the summer. I almost enjoyed swimming. I kept putting off ever doing a triathlon because eI thought I would hate swimming or it would be too hard. And now I want to make it a lifelong practice.

Despite all the time I spent in the pool. I never did make it to practicing open water swimming which was something I had wanted to do but failed to prioritize and commit to. I had heard so much about how different it is to swim in open water vs being in a pool. And now I know how real that is.

I chose this event to be my first triathlon in large part because I had heard that at least for a large part of the swim you can stop and touch the ground if you need to. What it did not prepare me fore is what happens when you pass the point of being able to touch. Once that safety net is gone what happens then?

So, for the swim essentially the whole sprint course was shallow enough to touch. And I began the swim nice and easy taking a few brief rests where I could touch so I did not get tired out too fast. But eventually it. Became time to get real. I passed the buoy for the sprint distance. I was now in uncharted water.

I started to try and get into a rhythm with my swimming. I was still hanging on tot he tail end of my wave with a free others and faster runners from the next wave catching up. I really struggled to get comfortable. I could not find my rhythm. I could not get my breathing comfortable. I kept coughing and gagging on water. I t was like nothing that I had ever experienced in the pool. The water was relatively calm. I was just nervous. And it only got worse.

As I continued to try and make it to the turn around buoy I struggled more and more. I felt like a fish out of water except I had been thrown in the deep end. My anxiety began to increase. I stopped my freestyle swim and just tried to tread water a bit and doggy paddle some so I was not at a complete stop.

There came a point where my anxiety almost overwhelmed me and I was just getting more and more scared. Scared of what I don’t know. I didn’t actually feel like I was going to drown or anything. I was just out in the water. A place I had never been. I almost quit. I looked for the safety kayaks and I almost signaled to one and told them I was done. It almost happened.

But I had to get ahold of myself mentally. Which was hard, because my normal method for that is to focus on my breathing and literally talk to myself out loud telling myself what to do and what thoughts to let go of. Which was a challenge while. Bobbing up and down in the water and trying to at least make some headway swimming.

I finally was able to regroup mentally. And that is really alll it took. I was not tired. I was not actually struggling physically. I was just afraid. And I started to think about the sign that my wife brought to our last trail race with the words “I did not come this far, to just come this far.” I came here to finish this. I trained all year for this. I sacrificed for this. I learned new skills for this. And I was not going to quit. I was going to get through this swim portion of the triathlon.

As I got around the turn around buoys and started making my way back to the shore I finally was able to find some semblance of a pattern. My stroke that I practiced all year returned. It is clear in my pace data where I was struggling and wher eI started to piece it back together and make more consistent progress.

I did get off track a little bit and had to reorient towards the correct landing spot, but it wasn’t too bad. I really got a little frustrated when I got back to the section of the course that made up the sprint course and many of the people in the back of the pack like me simply stood up and walked the rest of the way back to the shore. I am not a good swimmer and walking would have been faster, but I trained all year to swim this. Not to swim half and walk the rest. The ground was just a safety net. But also everyone else was getting farther and farther ahead of me because they were not swimming. I decided to just say fuck it and keep swimming no matter how far behind I got because that was wha it came here to do. I wasn’t here to walk in the water I was here to swim and prove that I could do it. I wasn’t not here for fast times and I knew I was going to be slow in the swim so why fight it if it meant not truly achieving the goal I had set out to accomplish. I didn’t stop swimmming until my hands were digging into the sand on my strokes. Then I walked onto the shore, one of the last people out of the water. But I did it.

I swam .9 miles after never swimming any amount of distance ever in my life and only training for 7 months.

The Bike

Whenever I thought about this triathlon and how it would go, step 1 was survive the swim. And I did that. Then I always thought that I would use the bike segment more as recovery from the swim so that I could be fresh for the run, which I hoped would be my strongest section. I was a decent biker but I had no illusions about my overall time for the triathlon given how slow my swim was so going into the race I wasn’t concerned about being fast on the bike.

Sometimes when you get into a race your mindset just shifts and goes somewhere unexpected. AS much as I was afraid during the swim. I was thrust into competitive mode during the bike segment.

I exited the transition area and got out onto the course at the same time as a couple of other racers. They quickly left me in their dust. But then came the hill I was expecting after our practice ride. I unexpectedly started to catch up to and pass people.

If you know me or have read any of my previous posts about my performance in sport you know that going uphill is my weakest link in any race. I generally do not pass anyone while climbing and generally am being passed going uphill. Hoping to get a chance to pass them back on a downhill.

After passing a few people it jusrtr made me want to push harder and catch up to more people. I wouldn’t say I was riding as hard as I could the whole time but I was riding at a pace that was effortful but sustainable for the full 24 mile course. I definitely was not taking it easy and saving it for the run.

Every time I began to catch up to people I cranked my effort level up a couple notches. I wanted to pass and not get passed back. And that is what mostly happened. A couple of times I would pass someone and they would pass me back a little while later but I would eventually put them in my review mirror permanently.

Two thirds of the way into the bike section we get this nice downhill but it is ruined by a sharp right hand turn which kills all of my momentum. And then to make things as bad as possible we start the steepest climb of the entire bike course. I slowed down so much that my Garmin watch thought that I had just entered the transition area at the end of the bike segment. I eventually got going ok, but it was the hardest work of the day. I eventually caught one guy and passed him. But that was short lived. Apparently getting passed set a fire under this mans ass. He was clearly significantly older than me and was having no part of getting passed by a young whipper snapper like me. As soon as I got by him I heard gears shifting on his bike and he passed me and I never caught back up to him during the bike section.

When I got to the section that I recognized being near the end of the bike course I did finally let off the gas a little so that I could try to recover some strength for the run. This was going to be something totally different yet again.

I am really beginning to enjoy seeing how much I can push my self on the bike during a competition. Especially because it is so different than most of the riding I enjoy doing.

The Run

In the last stretches of the bike ride the clouds began to dissipate and the sun came out. What generally may be seen as good news on the weather front for most people was not so for me. While the heat is less of an issue on the bike, it becomes a much more serious concern on the run for me.

Transitioning from the bike to the run went pretty smoothly. Not much wasted time or effort there. I am pretty happy with how all my transitions went. That was one of my biggest concerns were coming into this event being completely new to the world of multi sport this year.

My pre race goal for the run was to settle into what would be a comfortable pace on any other run and hope to get done in right around an hour. That proved to be harder than expected.

As with all my training it took a bit for my legs to adjust tot he change from biking to running. But once they did I felt pretty good. I was able to run smoothly for most of the first 5k loop of the run segment. Just trying to pace myself and not get too worn out on the first loop.

The run starts off by crossing the road and leaving the lakeshore area to run the paths and trails through a nice scenic little wetland area. It was a nice change of pace, but I could feel the heat building.

After completing that section I was surprised to find that the main road through that part of town was closed and we would be running right on the steamy hot blacktop. Prior to the event I had been imagining that we would run down the walking path through the park right along the lake shore. And I was looking forward to the cool breezes that would hopefully bring. But that was not to be the case.

As I neared the junction where runners either turned to go towards the finish line or start their second lap I joked with the volunteers there that we should just be able to finish now. The volunteers at this event were all awesome. Supper helpful and upbeat. Especially the kids helping with water stations.

Starting the second loop was tough. The wetland area was holding in all the heat and humidity. I began a run walk strategy. Just trying to keep a decent pace while keeping myself from overheating and ending up walking all the rest of the way.

I was happy at least that there were still more runners on the course than I expected while I was running. I thought with my slow swim time I would potentially be all alone on the run course as well. I didn’t even mind being passed be a few people. Espciellay since with the Triathlon markings on them telling me their ages I could totally justify getting passed by them because they were significantly younger than me. Andd probably not also doing their first triathlon. lol.

I was getting hotter and hotter. And the black Tri suit was not helping. Thankfully it was ultra thin, but it was absorbing all the heat from the sunlight. I tried to stay in the shade as much as possible during the run. One runner ahead of me that was also where a Tri suit unzipped the top and pulled it down to their waste, which seemed appealing for me to do as well but I was not convinced the whole thing would stay on if I did that.

Running down the hot paved roads on my second lap was hard. I stopped at every water station and got two cups of water to pour over my head. This really helped me keep from overheating. I am not sure how it would have went without the water. Probably a lot more walking. I was really thankful for the section that went out on the city pier. That was the only place during the road section that offered any shade or breeze.

I really remember now why I prefer trail running to road running. No blazing hot pavement to bake me. I also had not considered how much the heat would be a factor. The event itself started at around 7 am but I didn’t finish the run until nearly mid day. Way later in the day then I would choose to go on a run or be starting a running race in any other circumstances.

I do not typically do well running in the heat. This is something I will have to take into consideration for my next event and do more heat acclimation during my training even though I hate it. It is unfortunate that what I would argue is the hardest part of the event once you have any proficiency in the three components is in the hottest part of the day, particularly for slower runners like me.

I didn’t run as fast as I would have liked but considering the heat, and being my first time, I am pretty happy with the results.

Final Thoughts

One thing I like about trying something completely new, is all the room for improvement. I really like how the timing breaks down your overall time into what your time was for each activity. Your swim, bike, and run as well as each transition gets its own time breakdown.

I think this is very useful for seeing where the easiest gains for improvement are. My swim is the obvious place to start for me. Being completely new to swimming I expected that to be my worst aspect. But after completing my first and planning for more in the future I am looking forward to continuing to swim year round and see my improvement.

It was really interesting to see that for the next 10 ahead of me in the overall time had slower runners times than me. If I can at least improve my swim time a little. And build more strength for my run after the bike I think I will be in good shape for improving next year. Especially since I will have a full year to focus on triathlon.

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