Race reports · 2014 · by Jay
Tinman Triathlon 2014: not nearly enough training
July 2014, with no training to speak of, and 2:40:58 and 3:08:27 to show for it.
I talked Michelle into the Honolulu Triathlon in May of 2014, and then, while she was still speaking to me, into this one two months later. We weren't really training for either of them, not nearly enough for a three-hour effort anyway. We had jobs and a vague idea that a triathlon was something you could show up to on a Sunday and see what happened, so that's what we did.
The Tinman is a half-mile swim, 25 miles on the bike, and a 10K run, which is a lot to ask of two people whose training that summer usually consisted of nothing in particular. I came in at 2:40:58 and Michelle came in at 3:08:27. The splits on the card tell you how it went: 16 minutes in the water, an hour and nineteen on the bike, and then almost an hour to cover six miles in the July sun. Michelle's day went about the same way, a little longer on the bike and an hour and fifteen for the run, and neither of us was sprinting for the line. We suffered through it, went home, and then more or less stopped for eight years.
Why this page exists
We couldn't find the 2014 Honolulu Tri results anywhere online, so this is the only 2014 result that's still out there, on Timeline Hawaii, in age groups (40 to 44 for me, 30 to 34 for Michelle) that make us feel old just typing them. We're not embarrassed by the times, because that's what an untrained triathlon looks like: you finish, you eat something, you go home, and you don't think about it much again… for a while.
It's here because every order of races has a first one, and this is ours. Nine years later, on a bike I'd actually ridden, I went to Honu, and the 2014 version of me, sitting at the finish of this one, would not have believed that.