I've always enjoyed swimming, until I did it for exercise... It's not something I ever thought I could break a sweat doing - regardless of how fast I flailed my arms or how much water I swallowed. Luckily the water at The Ridge tastes like a combination between week old dishwater and sweat. Something about natural water cleaners instead of chlorine... I've been swimming a lot (nightly for 2 weeks) trying to get my strokes, kicking, and breathing all in sync. It gets better every night. Still, I can't help but wonder how much easier it would be to learn if my eyes burned instead trying to swim constantly gagging on salty dishwater.
The biking is going well... I should be able to crank out 12 miles in about 40 minutes - which for me will be a very swift pace.
Running: who the hell knows. I've been doing my First Day to 5K intervals for 10 weeks now - but I've done all the work on a treadmill. I went for a few runs, nothing significant. Two nights ago I went on a 2.5 mile run (the competition is 3.1) and I thought I was going to die. Treadmill running doesn't translate to real running very well at all. I'm sure when it comes time to run - trained or not - I'm going to be exhausted from biking and swimming. Here's hoping I don't puke my guts out!!!
I hope that when this is all over I have a brief moment of clarity that will allow me to reflect on this whole thing in a different and motivating light. The only real goal I've set in the last couple weeks is that I want to cross the finish line without crying like a baby. Wish me luck!!!
Below is a couple graphs from my training log... So far, since learning the exact date of my own personal apocalypse, I've significantly ramped things up - both in intensity and duration. If I had any sense - before my next event, I will train the same amount of time (and more) but keep most of it in Zone 1 (blue) and gradually ease into more rigorous Zone 2 (Red) and Zone 3 (Yellow) exercise bouts, decreasing duration as intensity increases.

