Murphy's Law usually appears at triathlons

Sometimes when I'm an hour deep into a triathlon, staring at the dried salt on my sunglasses, focusing through the pain pulsating though my body, I wonder what the heck am I doing.

Why did I put hours and hours into training for pure hell? Why did I wake up at 4:30 in the morning while the sun is still sleeping to drive to an event my body will pay for in the next three days? What am I doing?

The truth is those thoughts went through my mind Sunday as I powered through the last mile of a four-mile run, after I had just swam 800 meters and biked 18 miles through Lexington. I don't doubt myself very long because one thought is usually enough fuel to kick myself into a higher gear.

The answer to everything is very simple: I love the feeling of competition, crossing the finish line and the pain that ensues after every race. I know I'm crazy, and after a few years as a triathlete, my stories get wilder and wilder. However, I keep coming back for more.

I'm pretty sure triathlon is the only sport that will cancel its national championship. It wasn't a labor strike like the major sports have to go through. It was Mother Nature. A mid-August torrential downpour forced the race officials to cancel a championship featuring the best amateur triathletes representing 49 of the 50 states. Nothing could be refunded: the $110 entry fee, hotel costs, rental cars, airfare.

I drove 10 hours to get to Kansas City, Mo., for the race while my parents drove through the night and early morning. They never got out of the car and eventually drove back home.

My traumatic experience was no comparison to the countless others who came from all over the country. The only state not represented was Alaska, and the one comment I heard that will stick with me for the rest of my triathlon career was from a gentleman in the hotel parking garage after the race debacle.

He was an older man, and he asked me if it was worth it coming all the way from Kentucky for the race. I said it wasn't, and he looked at me with a smile and said, "It wasn't worth it coming from Vermont either." Talk about humbling me.

There was also the time I got up at 5 a.m. for a race in Cape Girardeau, Mo. I had the directions to the park and got off the exit with plenty of time to spare. The only problem was, the directions were wrong, none of the locals I talked to could tell me the right way, and on my last attempt down a windy road, I realized any thought of racing that day was over.

I drove for three hours and had another two to get home, and the only thing that kept me from having a heart attack was that it was Sept. 11. With my car in park, I knew that however bad my day was going to be, it wasn't going to be as bad as those directly related with the terrorist attacks.

All this brings me to this weekend, when I went out Saturday evening to checkout the bike course. Three miles in, my workout was over when something in the road punctured my tire and caused a flat. No one I knew in Lexington was home, and I didn't know how I was going to get back to my car.

Then an angel appeared. A man on his way home from work stopped with his van and offered me a lift back to my car. He biked on occasion and knew if he was in the same situation, he would want someone to do the same thing.

I've been though some pretty rough times in this sport, but the one trump card that cancels out all the bad times and feelings is crossing the finish line and feeling pain and pleasure at the same time.

No matter what, I'll always keep coming back.

Nathan Clinkenbeard is the sports editor at The Murray State News. E-mail comments to nclinkenbeard@thenews.org.