I spent a lot of time earlier this spring thinking about what I wanted from this year. I compete in three different sports, and sometimes I struggle to figure out how to make it all work. My first sport is dog agility, which is a sport where the dog is the athlete and I’m the brains of the team–but I need to keep up, too, which requires all-out sprints lasting 30-to-45 seconds.
My second sport, trail running, is a totally different beast. Running on trails with my dog is pretty much pure pleasure, even when I’m sweating and hurting. I don’t do ultras, though, although my big spring goal was a half-marathon trail race my daughter and I did. (I wasn’t dead last, which was my “big” goal, after simply completing it within the time limit.)
My third sport, triathlon, is an outgrowth of the first two sports. I started with cross-training for running, because I simply couldn’t run every day without hurting myself; I swim for the love of how I feel when I swim; I bike because my husband enjoys it when I go on rides with him *and* because I enjoy the scenery and the company. And I’m competitive, so once I was doing all three things, of course I had to try a sprint triathlon–and a sprint tri is FUN. Just when you get bored of a sport, you’re on to