5/30/08

Gagging on dirty gulps of irony...

I'd be lying if I said I'm not nervous about my upcoming triathlon. Physically I'm mostly unprepared. I'm not even worried about the transitions between events, I'll shed no tears over 30 seconds lost not finding the most efficient way to go from swimming, to biking, to puking, to running, to puking, crying, and finally collapse.

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.


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