I’ve been intrigued by the concept of the multi-sport discipline of triathlon ever since my college girlfriend completed a race the summer after we graduated. Courtney told me stories of rushing out of work to go swimming in a nearby lake with a fellow reporter from her newspaper. Running came easily to her (she was petit and trim; I’d be shocked if she weighed one hundred pounds soaking wet), and she had grown up riding her bike around the streets of Rochester. By the way she described it, it sounded like the best summer of her life. But I was too busy, and too out of shape to even begin to consider it for myself. Maybe later. I tucked her comments away in my memory vault.

When I turned thirty, I heard Courtney’s little voice in my head encouraging me to give it a whirl. Could this be the year? I was no marathoner, but I had been participating in a lot of New York Road Runners races in Central Park, so I could certainly handle the run part of a sprint triathlon. But the more I thought about, and the more I investigated local races, I came to the conclusion that since I didn’t have a bike (even though my die-hard cyclist girlfriend Paquita guaranteed me that I’d love riding in the city), and that I really wasn’t comfortable swimming in the East River, it wasn’t likely that I’d do one. I stuck to running in the park and assuaged my guilt by enrolling in horseback riding lessons and joining a gym to vary my workouts.

A few years later, I moved down to Washington, DC and met my boyfriend. An avid cyclist, Scott encouraged me to go out riding with him. He bought me a used bike from Craigslist and from the minute I hopped on, I loved it. I probably hadn’t been on a bike since I was ten years old, and it was the most whimsical, liberating, dejavu-ish feeling I’d ever experienced. I called Paquita to tell her I was finally in the bike club! I could practically hear her smiling through the phone: “Oh, Lori! It must be love if he got you on a bike!”