Twenty-six years of the Reston Triathlon

Rick Uhrig remembers when triathlons were a new thing, and he had enough spare time to seriously train for them.

That was in the early 1980s. Uhrig, 55, now has three sons, a career in IT security government contracting and a lot of mileage on his bicycle tires.

Uhrig is one of two athletes (the other is Neil Medoff) who has done the Reston Triathlon every year since its founding in 1984. When he steps up to the start on Sunday, he will be joined by his oldest son, Richard, a high school student who will taking part in his first Reston Triathlon.

"Early on, I wanted to be as fast as I could be," said Uhrig, who lives in south Reston. "It was so new to me and it was about proving something to myself. The reality is now, I have three boys and I spend a lot more time being a father than I did 20 years ago."

Still, Uhrig says he looks forward to the Reston Triathlon every year.

"It is a great event," he said. "It is a really representative of the type of community Reston is and wants to be - all about people being outdoors and trying to achieve a goal."

Reston resident Paul Hartke will be participating in his 23rd Reston Triathlon.

"Participating in the hometown race is part of the fun of it," says Hartke, co-owner and broker of Reston's National Realty. "Seeing all those people out there,  you really get a rush of emotion."

Hartke, 56, is using the 2010 Reston Triathlon as a tuneup to his next athletic goal - his first marathon. He will run in the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington in October.

Race director Bunny Bonnes says 691 people will partcipate in Sunday's event. Compare that to the 165 entrants in 1984 (when Uhrig kept track of race results on a FORTRAN computer program), and you get a glimpse of how much the Reston Triathlon has grown.

"It has really become the hometown race," says Bonnes. "We now have almost the same number of volunteers as athletes."

The event begins with the one-mile swim at Lake Audubon at 7 a.m. Sunday. The bike course goes 22.3 miles through Reston, followed by the 10K run. The bike/run transition and the finish line are at South Lakes High School.

Excellent race vantage points: along South Lakes Drive, Ridge Heights Road, Glade Drive, Twin Branches Road and at South Lakes High School.