What is your triathlon claim to fame? (Page 4)

Won my age group in my first sprint tri.  
There were only 10 people in the AG though... so not as incredible as the achievements others have posted.

In my youth, I had some running claims to fame but that was long, long ago.  I think I was one of the youngest women to break 3 hours, esp. in a first marathon. (2:59:52 at age 14). I think the second youngest to qualify for US Olympic Trials Marathon (at 17).  At one time I had a national age record in the HM (1:19 something at age 15). Then I started teaching, and living in the Third World, and my running went down the drain.  My only adult claim to athletic fame is being third overall in a marathon behind two Kenyan guys. It was a high-altititude race (Crater Lake, year forgotten) and it got so hot that much of the field had dropped out. I recall feeling fine.

These days,  I am only famous to my students. They love to see their teacher in a tri suit. They are happy with nothing less than first overall, so they are never happy with my results!  But my real claim to fame involves losing control of a rental bike and crashing rather spectacularly into a sand dune during my first (off-road) sprint tri.  The crash, cussing, digging out, losing the lead, and going on was filmed and aired by a local TV station. I have been a hero to my students ever since. No amount of age records can match a good bike crash for cool factor.

Met the cuttoff time to register for the elite wave in a local series of sprint tris in my 1st year. 

Registered for the elite wave this year. (this scares me)

My great claim to fame is that in my 6th, not my 1st triathlon, I ran out of T2 with my helmet on. It was awesome to see the look on the volunteers faces when I realized I had done it.

Otherwise, my great claim to fame is grabbing 3rd on the podium in my AG at a small local race last year.

Maybe this is more infamy than fame, but my first sprint triathlon I missed a turn.  A mile or two down the road I realized what I'd done and started shouting curses and shaking my fist at the sky.  Right then a nice gentlemen in a pickup truck pulled over and asked if everything was all right.  About 30 seconds later my bike and I were in the bed of his pickup truck beside his 8 year old son and his baseball gear.

The race volunteer started guffawing when he saw me hop out of the truck and waved me on, "I didn't see a thing." 

Right there with ya.  This was my claim to infamy....rode the entire race wondering why the straps on my helmet kept bothering me.  Like you, this was NOT my first triathlon.







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I don't have any tri claims to fame other than finishing every race that I've entered... including one where I still had internal bleeding into my arm from blood testing gone wrong where my artery was nicked by the evil lab tech person.  I couldn't straighten my arm, rest any weight on it, or really do anything with it because of the throbbing pain - but I still finished.  It wasn't pretty, but I finished. 

Back in the day I was a pretty good athlete in gymnastics, basketball and volleyball (provincial champ in all 3, national champ and competed internationally in gymnastics), I'm hoping a small smidgen of that will transfer over to this new addiction of mine.   

I've started AND finished every one for which I registered.

I’ve managed to be a pretty solid MOP triathlete (sub 1:15 sprint, sub 3:00 Oly, and a HIM of right around 6:00) without having had any competitive swimming, biking or running in my background before I took up the sport in 2006 at the age of 36.
Oh, and I finished 5th overall at an indoor triathlon once.

It's almost 20 years since I kicked a 2 or 3 pack a day smoking habit. I've taken 1st place in my AG in a local oly distance tri and 10th out of 70+ in my AG at a larger HIM. I like some of these others listed here too: I've started and finished every race I registered for, and I've never flatted during a race (yet!).

This has to be the lamest one in the thread......

My daughter and I were both born in the same town as Chrissie Wellington!

This user's post has been ignored.

Edited by melbel1038 2011-02-25 2:34 PM

a number of AG placings in sprints and olympic distance
I've finished every race I've entered
1st OA at a 10k
10th in AG at Seattle Marathon (while sick, and horrible pacing), out of about 120 in AG.
4th OA in my 2nd 1/2 marathon, with an 8 min PR over my first 5 months previous. 

I've completed 3 IM's in 3 years, but my biggest claim is 2 months away. 

I will complete IM Australia 7 months after fully tearing my achilles tendon.  As I was on the floor in pain I counted out 7 months and knew I could do it, even without knowing the extent of my injury or the timetable for return.  The only others who believed in me were my loving wife and my ortho doc.  I told my kids I wouldn't quit and they've watched me rehab my way back into shape.  On May 1st I'll toe the line and finish with a smile, not as fast as I may have wanted but time means nothing to them.  My kids will see first hand what joy hard work and resiliency can bring. 

Then we'll go look for kangaroos......a promise is a promise

I did Ironman 70.3 Calgary with injured rib muscles and thought I'd be fine after a painful swim.

Then I flatted no fewer than FOUR times on the bike and made the bike cutoff by two seconds. I treasure that finisher's belt buckle even though it has an unflattering number beside it! 

I won the women's field once.  It was a local sprint race and the usual contenders weren't there, but hey, that was the first and likely the last time I'll see the view from the top of the OA podium!

Me?

That I finished 3 Sprint tris, one Olympic (hard bike course!, 1 5k, and 1 Half-Mary.  Lost 25 pounds in the process...all in my first year of doing triathlons. :-P  How's that?

What matters to me is that I enjoyed it and had a BLAST and that I finished great!   

I just officially made my team's squad for Collegiate Nationals in April!

I take back what i said before.

My claim to fame is being the photographer for this photo!!!
It's the only photo i've ever had that's popped up all over the internet, and i'm totally ok with it.

This was at Ironman Louisville the first year.





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I'll bite... 2 years of triathlon, 2 years winning age group in all but one race (came in second)....  I think this year, now that I aged up iinto 25-29 will be a little harder.

I like this one - I can relate, although my time span isn't quite as long But I have basically no athletic background at all (active as a child, but always in less physically demanding sports, always DFL running at school), and since the first time I ran over 1km in April last year, I've done a HM, 2 sprint tris, 3x 5K races (including a 3rd placing at a not-very-competitive one and have nearly broken 20 mins), several OWS events including a 1500m (having started swimming in October last year) and by the end of April will have a 33km coastal trail run, 1 more sprint, an Oly, a 2km OWS, and a few more 5Ks to add to the list. I'm impatient for success to come, but it's nice to look back on how much I've progressed in the last 12 months

I wear many goggles.