Karen writes: How we started triathlon - Special K

A very long time ago, someone suggested that the Diabetes Projects Trust put a team in for the 2005 Special K women's entry level triathlon held in Auckland.  This was touted as being the biggest event of it's kind in the Southern Hemisphere.   The Special K brand disappeared from the triathlon scene shortly afterwards (there have been other incarnations), but it is I am sure an amazing memory for many women in New Zealand.  I still see the t’shirt around occasionally, obviously being worn for sentimental reasons by people who would appear to have come a long way on their personal endurance journeys from that original event.

For me, it was the first organised event I had participated in in more than 20 years, and certainly my first ever triathlon effort.  I think it was around a 300m swim, a 10km bikeride, and a 3km run along the Auckland city waterfront.    I was overweight, desperately unfit, and as the working mother of an 18 month old daughter I was struggling to keep up with the pace of my life.

The preparation was something we all got caught up in, having a common impossible goal was great.   We had emails going backwards and forwards sharing embarrassing photos, hilarious discussions about trying to buy suitable clothing, we agonised about our training (or lack of), dissected our nutrition (it was Christmas... cake and chocolate featured heavily), monitored our hydration (dietitian Helen did tell us that we had to drink plenty of water before rewarding ourselves with alcohol), and our equipment desires as opposed to what we actually had was cause for much consternation.    It was such a HUGE thing for most of us, we even ended up running a mock event one workday around the streets of Otara which went a long way towards allaying the almost paralysing anxiety some of us were feeling.  

The race day dawned early, we had taken our bikes into town the night before and had our numbers marked on our arms, this was a bit of a mission for some of us who lived outside Auckland.  There were literally thousands of women and their supporters in the same situation, the excitement (and terror) was palpable, every shape, size, level of fitness, and age was represented.  We stood in that cool early morning air, surrounded by others wedged into long-unused swimsuits, clutching unfamiliar goggles, and were released in waves with many walk/swimming the impossibly long seeming 300 metres.  Walkers overtook me while I attempted to swim, I gave up on my inept efforts and swim walked too and can still feel that squishy Mission Bay mud between my toes.  Salty thousands then clambered onto their assorted bikes (mine was an ancient rusty mountain bike with only a few functioning gears) and pedalled off with wobbly gusto.  There were people on the side of the road cheering, children everywhere, and this extraordinary enthusiasm pushed women to extend their own limits.   I remember feeling the same way starting off running (chest closing up, legs feeling funny) after finishing that 10km cycle as I do now after 90km.  One side story of particular note was a team member who only learned to ride a bike in the weeks immediately before the event, she went from hesitant pedalling round the office carpark, to cycling her 10km on the road and she came home a triathlete.

Swim to bike transition, I'm 2nd from the right

Coming over that finish line was massive, probably bigger than anything I have achieved since, even bigger than the first marathon.   I remember us all in a state of fear that someone hadn’t finished, where were they, we were so proud of ourselves but how could we celebrate if one of our own wasn’t sharing it?  Then the relief that we had all finished and shock as it sank in as to what we had achieved.   On the way home, and I have never done this since, I was so shattered I fell asleep in the passenger seat of the car.  After what was less than an hour of exercise in total!

So it is all relative.   To all those DPT team members who started their exercise journey with Special K, some have taken things further, and there are some for whom that event was as far as they wanted to go, but what an extraordinary thing you all did.   I look back at the photos and it seems like such a long time ago now and I certainly didn't even imagine back then that we were on a path to something much larger. Thankyou for that amazing experience, I'm still proud of it today.

2005 DPT Special K Team - Eileen, Gina, Helen, Jennie, Judy, Karen, Kate, Miria, Trish and Sara...and of course their supporters who got them through it!