New Experiences

It's getting close to my first triathlon race day and I am getting very excited about it. I will leave Jackson next Friday and go to Hattiesburg for packet pick-up that evening. The race will be next Saturday morning at 8AM. I hope to finish the race in less than 2 hours. I wish I could say that a faster goal is likely, but my slothiness (yeah, I made that word up!) on the run cannot be overstated. I have had a few new and interesting experiences lately that I should share.

First, I did my first brick workout last week. For all of my "non-triathlete" friends, a brick is basically a simulation of a portion of the race involving two discliplines. My first brick workout was an 18.5 mile bike ride followed by a 1 mile run. It's an interesting feeling getting off of a bike and running immediately afterward. It didn't feel like I thought it would. I expectef heavy legs (as the name of the workout implies). My legs were more numb than anything else...they actually felt light. I had some trouble with my heart rate on the bike after a couple of hills, but overall, I averaged about 17.5 mph, which is great for me on a solo ride. My run was about 12 minutes, so about the norm for me (see, I told you I a "snail's pace" was giving me too much credit when describing how fast I run). Overall, it was a good experience. I will be doing another brick tomorrow, a 13 mile ride and 3 mile run, which is a little closer to the actual race distance.

The second new experience for me was a wetsuit swim. I recently bought a wetsuit to swim in because of a great promo offer. I got an offer for a $300 wetsuit for $99- an offer I couldn't turn down. So, in preparation for the race, I took the wetsuit to the pool to try out in case it would be legal to swim in it for the race (depends on the water temperature on race day). It was definitely a different experience swimming in a wetsuit. Someone told me it feels like you are in a canoe when you are swimming and I can't think of a better way to describe it. I know it's a hard concept to grasp, but when I started swimming I understood what they were talking about. I was much faster with the wetsuit while expending much less energy; in fact, I cut almost 2 minutes off of my best 800 yard swim time. It was a cool experience and I hope I get to wear it on race day.

Lastly, I ran just under 7 miles Saturday evening after I got off of work. It was a slow run and I may have walked a total of about a mile, but it was my first longer run of marathon training. I ran from my house to the other side of the causeway bridge on the reservoir and back. The sunset over the reservoir was great to watch and got my mind off of my aching legs. I felt good for most of the run, but got some pretty heavy legs at about mile 6 which didn't get better until midday the next day (can't wait to see how my 18 miler at the end of December makes me feel). It was a big accomplishment and I look forward to running 8 miles this coming weekend.

Anyway, those are a couple of the new experiences I have had lately getting ready for my race next week. This is my last week of the bigger workouts (relative term) before my race, then next week will be light workouts every day.

Looking forward to race day!

"Sometimes winning has nothing to do with being first across the finish line" -John Bingham