By Abbie Hayutin, USAT Level 1 Coach
A Triathlon Love Story
Everyone has a triathlon story. Mine is a love story. In high school I fell in love with a handsome, athletic and smart boy. The story began when I joined the high school cross-country team in the hope, he would finally notice me. And the journey continued when we both landed at the same college and took some classes together.
While studying for a Stats class, he was feeling rather beaten with my brainy ways and the macho in him challenged me to a triathlon. “A tri what?” The sport was brand new, not mainstream like it is today. Swimming, biking and running one after the other? In my childhood I had done all three sports, so what could be so difficult?
The boy I liked challenged me and I desperately wanted to win him over, so it was Game On! My thought was that we would train together and accomplish this amazing goal and just maybe he would notice me.
We trained together sporadically, but given he was the better athlete, I held him back. Once we stopped training together, he stopped training altogether. In the end, he bailed on doing the event and eventually went on to become a Navy Seal. It was the end for us but a new beginning for me!
The race was an Olympic Distance: 750-meter swim, 25-mile bike and 10k run. As a kid, I swam on a swim team, did long bike rides with my fathers Sunday Cycling Club and ran Varsity Cross Country in high school. I experimented with various workouts, applying the skills I knew from each of these disciplines.
Triathlon in those early days was a melting pot of ideas. It was an exciting time. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t. But through trial and error, I started to develop a training philosophy and “fell in love” not with the boy, but with the sport. And it has been a life-long Love Story ever since!
Take the first step in creating your own Triathlon Story by attending the complimentary Zero to Tri Hero Sprint Triathlon 14-Week Program Informational Meeting on Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 6:30pm at Club Greenwood. You will meet past program participants and be inspired by featured keynote speaker Tim Hola, World-Ranked Ironman Age Group Champion and Norseman Finisher. And who knows, you may just “Fall in Love” with Triathlon, too!
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Learn more about how to succeed as a beginner triathlete: