First Threshold Test on the Bike

So I had been waiting for it for a while and my coach finally put it on my calendar. My first FTP test. I really had no idea how hard I could go, how to pace myself etc. I got everything set up, fans going on high, towel on the handlebars, ready for a hard workout.

My coach does it as a 15 minute warm up, 30 minute hard effort and 15 minute cool down. After my warm up I jumped up my power and off I went. It went well, but then my bike kept popping in and out of gear. So in the middle of the test I am looking for a gear that the bike will stay in, combined with a resistance setting for the trainer to give me my desired power. Frustrating.

I completed the test, but I still had energy in the tank. I didn't go hard enough. But I was happy with the result. I was the highest 30 minute continuous power that I have done, but I know I could do more. I learned a lot and can apply that next time.

Christmas Letter

Every year for as long as I can remember we have written a letter to send out to family and friends that talks about all the things we did and places we went over the past year. My wife usually writes this and when I saw the first draft, it included a paragraph about my bike and me training for triathlons.

Honestly, I haven't told anyone about this. Nobody knows I am training for triathlons and I was really unsure that I wanted to just announce it to the world via the christmas letter. Nobody even knows about this blog. The reasons for this are purely selfish, and the main one is that I have no idea if I am going to even be successful. I hurt myself the first time I ran, it is 3 sports I have never really done, or done well at put together.

I thought I could just wait until I finished a couple of triathlons and then start talking about it next summer. My wife didn't think it was a big deal and after talking through it, I decided to keep the paragraph in the Christmas letter.

Dismissed from PT

So over the past few weeks I have been adding some short jogs to my walks to test my hamstring. Nothing longer than 30 seconds of running at a time and so far things seem to be going ok. So at my physical therapy appointment today, Ann deemed me fit enough that I didn't need to see her anymore. So with that news, I am done with PT!!

When I was last at the doctor, he offered one of his staff to do a gait analysis when I was able to do some running, so I have a call in to them to make an appointment. Whatever I can do to keep from getting injured again would be good.

Swim Meet

Well the Masters swim season is upon us. Had a couple of good taper swims this week in training. The first meet of the season is a short course meters meet at the University of Minnesota pool. Two years ago this was the site of my first ever masters swim meet. I swam the 50 free along with the 50 and 100 back. I couldn't swim much further than that.

Today I only swam freestyle events and also included the 400m free which I really wanted to do well with. I am still relatively new with flip turns and I don't do them in practice all the time partially because I am usually sharing lanes with people who don't and I don't have much control over my direction yet. But I completed the 400m free with all flip turns today! Thats the most ever in competition.

My final results were:

50m Free 39.86
100m Free 1:27.37
200m Free 3:02.23
400m Free 7:18.89

My daughter came along today to be a junior Nortlander and cheer me on!

First "Run"

After discussing with my physical therapist she suggested that I give running a try. So since I missed a walk earlier in the week I decided to add one in tonight. It was a bit chilly but a nice night out on the lakewalk.

So during my 45 minute walk, I also ran 3 short segments between miles 1.5-2. Total running length less than 200 yards probably.

My leg was pretty tight, some pain, but I dont think anything is injured. I will continue to explore this over next couple of weeks.

Gobble Gallop 5k

On a whim, the family decided to sign up for the local Thanksgiving morning 5k. A down and back on Superior street in downtown Duluth. No running for me as I am still nursing the hamstring, but I decided I could walk it.

It was a brisk morning but not too bad outside actually. We dressed appropriately of course. We saw a few people we knew and the announcer was a local comedian and avid athlete so it was quite entertaining waiting for the start.

The kid sprinted off and we saw her some time later just before the turnaround. Melissa and I were walking together and a nice pace. About half way through my hamstring started to tighten up so Melissa went ahead some, but never got out of sight of me. A friend from swimming had already finished and she came back through the crowd until she saw Melissa and walked with her.

I finished in 48:35. Not setting any records out there today, but it was good to get out. Melissa finished just ahead of me in 48:09, and Trinity in a "blazing" 46:59.

Packer Game

Made a trip to Green Bay to visit my parents and take in a Green Bay Packers game. We go to a couple of these a year. Usually we fly or drive in on Friday evening and depart after the game. Being a pilot and owning an airplane has some advantages.

So while in Green Bay on Saturday, I headed to the YMCA to do a strength workout. I found myself a little corner with some dumbbells and a weight bench and went to work. Boy some of my muscles were screaming after that one.

Sunday we went to the game. Beautiful weather for November.

Vegas Weekend

I like to go to Vegas for weekend getaways a few times per year. This past weekend was one of those times. But I still gotta work out so the coach gave me a few workouts to do while there. First up was an elliptical workout. I did this in the hotel gym, and then did my PT exercises.

After a bit of research, I found that there was a big pool just a few block from my hotel and just $3 to swim. So I went there on Monday morning and did a good 2700 yard swim. There was almost nobody there. Just one other person lap swimming, and about a dozen people in some sort of water aerobics class. It is a 50m pool but was set up for 25 yards across and only half of it was open. It was a good pool in a very sketchy neighborhood. Signs everywhere that you cannot do your laundry in the sinks in the locker room. Apparently with as cheap as it is, the homeless come in here to shower and stuff.

Fire Alarm

So I dropped the kid off for swim team practice and I went to another gym that I have a membership at to do my core exercises and my PT strengthening work for my hamstring. While I was there, the fire alarm went off in the building, though via the announcements, it was actually for a different building. Not sure why the alarm was on in our area, but it stayed on for 15 minutes or so just binging away.

Sore

So this sudden significant increase in exercise is causing me to be sore a lot. Just overall muscle soreness, nothing injured, just tired and sore. I suppose that is a good thing, but it seems I am needing more time to recover than I used to. I guess at age 46, things just go a little slower.

I did a bike workout of 30s intervals with 60s rest in between. It was a difficult workout and I found myself adjusting the resistance so that I could keep doing it. So I was tired afterwards, but now today my legs are pretty sore. I woke up a few times during the night and wow, they didn't want to move. A little better once I got moving in the morning prior to the swim.

Spin Ups!

Well my trainer finally arrived and I have it set up in my basement alongside my elliptical machine. I am definately slowly building up my own pain cave here. The first workout on the trainer was spin ups. Every minute increasing the RPM by 5 from 70-115. Holy cow! I have never pedaled that fast before.

Lesson learned: I am going to need a fan and a towel for future rides, I am a puddle of sweat.

Spin Bike and Substitute Coach

So I am still waiting for my trainer to arrive. It should be here in the next day or so. Until then, I did use the spin bike at the YMCA again on Monday night. Tuesday we did some trick or treating around the neighborhood. Well my daughter did, I just escorted her and her friend around.

Speaking of my daughter, she swims on the YMCA swim team, and during the main season, they have a "dry land" practice for 45 minutes on Tuesday and Thursday nights before the in pool practice. They normally do a bunch of core and bodyweight types of workouts.

Well today her instructor didn't show up. So I substituted and we did a bunch of things. Planks, dumbbells, squats, medicine ball exercises. It was a fun 30 minutes with her.

Winter

Well winter came early this year. I had set aside this weekend to do all the last outdoor stuff around my house like put away the lawn furniture, cut down the hostas and put the rain barrels away. However, mother nature had different plans and now we are covered in snow and it doesn't look like it is going away any time soon.

So no biking for a while until my trainer arrives. Well I did manage to do a workout on a spin bike at the YMCA. It was really hot in there and what is with the weird red mood lighting?

Coaching Week 1

Well my week of workouts was put into Training Peaks by my coach and I am off to go do them. I have my 2x/week tri-swim class, then a couple of ellipticals, a couple of bikes, and one easy walk. I also have some strength and core training too. A big mix of stuff but it all looks doable.

I did my swim on Monday morning, and then I had a strength and elliptical on Tuesday. It works out good because my kid is at the Y for swim team practice 3 nights a week so I can use the facility there. On Wednesday I had a 45 minute bike which I did outside, but fall has hit HARD here and that was a very cold ride. Temps started in the low 40's and dipped to 37 by the end of the 45 minute ride. BRRR.

I have a really nice bike jacket which kept my upper body warm, but my face and fingers were frozen.

Hamstring

I have been going to PT for a few weeks now with only small improvement so I went back to the doctor for a follow up. He still thinks it is just a strain and sent me back to PT. This is so frustrating.

So I will keep doing elliptical and swimming and all my PT exercises and hopefully at some point I will come out of this and be good to go.

Vacation, Food, Fun and a bit of Swimming

A week long cruise in the western caribbean was on tap for the 3rd week of October. We boarded the largest cruise ship in the world Harmony of the Seas in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. Our first stop was in Labadee Haiti at Royal Carbbean's private beach. While there I was able to try my hand at a bit of open water swimming.

A bit over 500 yards. I did another little swim later in the day but ran into some rocks and scraped my hand so that was the end of that.

I did a bit of walking on the ship which had a great walking track. But with the ship moving at 20kts in the middle of the ocean it makes for a super fast walk. I did something like 10 miles in a little over a half hour!

It was a great trip, very relaxing, beautiful scenery, ate too much, but had a good time. Now it is time for some coaching led workouts!

Shultz Road Loop

I have a week long cruise coming up so no set workouts with my coach until after I get back from that. So I have been on my own to just swim and bike. Up until now, I have been doing and out and back on a road by my house. That has been fine, but the last couple of rides I have branched out to a loop ride. This is nice and convenient 18.6 mile loop with good roads with wide shoulders.

So it appears that about an hour is all I can possible stand to sit on the bike. My butt is DONE after an hour. Thankfully that's about what this loop takes. My legs are jelly about half way through as well. I got some work to do to get used to biking.

Coach

Well after some searching and a few emails and phone calls I got myself a coach. I am excited about this actually. I have never really had a true coach for anything before. My organized sports as a youth had parents as coaches but not like this.

I am looking forward to the organized aspect of coaching. I have a hard time determining what I should be doing next, how hard to do it, etc. Perfect reason to have a coach.

But I kinda actually have two coaches. Coach Nate is my triathlon coach, but I also have Coach Max who is teaching my swimming class, is my daughter's swim team coach, and has given me a lot of good advice about swimming.

Maybe I am overdoing it, but I am hoping for good times, success in my goals, and trying to stay injury free.

Heart Rate

So one of the other toys I got for my birthday was a heart rate monitor for the pool. I wore it for my two Tri-Swim classes this week and it worked great.

I noticed right away that there were two sets of 4 rising peaks in the middle there where we did two sets of 4x100 build.

Speaking of which, I have always struggled with build sets. I have never been able to find a middle gear. I can go nice and easy, and I can go fast, but being able to control things in the middle has been a struggle.

But today I was finally able to do that with a 2:01, 1:54, 1:48, 1:39 build set! I was super happy with that but hard to celebrate in a group session.

Injured

About 3 weeks ago I tried running for the first time in probably a decade. Wouldn't you know it, I hurt myself. I pulled a muscle in my inner thigh, and then that spread to a full fledged hamstring pull. The odd thing was that it only hurt when I ran or walked fast. Swimming or biking didn’t hurt. So finally after 3 weeks of rest without getting better, off to the doctor I went with a 730am appointment.

I saw TJ the NP. He said to ice it, and take mass doses of ibuprofen. That was not unexpected. He also agreed that PT was probably a good thing so he sent me off to scheduling to make an appointment for physical therapy. Amazingly enough there was an appointment at 830am that morning! So I went home, changed into some shorts and headed back to PT.

My PT was an initial 1 hour session. She checked me out and said that basically the adductor and hamstring pain are likely related. She wants me to ice my upper hamstring. She gave me some hamstring and calf stretches to do. She did a bunch of soft tissue massage with the grafton tool.

Her evaluation is that my left butt cheek is weaker than my right which likely has an effect on this too.

Next visit I am supposed to bring my running shoes. She said I have over flexible ankles and my foot tends to collapse inward and if the shoes don't support that, then your butt has to support that, and if your butt isn't strong enough then your hamstring takes the load and viola you end up in PT.

So this whole thing isn't starting very well.

First uses

So I took my new swim watch, sans heart rate strap, to my swim class Monday morning. It is designed such that you can pause the workout when you are resting at the end of the pool then restart when you swim. Well as expected, I forgot to pause it a couple of times, and forgot to restart it a couple of times. But it worked really well.

Because of my errors it was about 500 yards short for the day including the warm up and cool down.

The pace and stroke count were very interesting as well. I think I can have some fun with all this data!

The day before, I took the Edge 820 out on the bike to see how it worked.

Speed, cadence, elevation, lots of fun stuff for this too.

With the Garmin products, now all of this automatically uploads to my new TrainingPeaks account.

Now I just need a coach.

New Toys

So I had been using a Samsung Gear Fit for a few months now. It was kinda nice having the heart rate, sleep monitoring, step counting etc. But it is limited in its functionality. So after much research, I spent some money (happy birthday, merry Christmas, happy valentines day, happy anniversary....) and bought some new toys.

Garmin Fenix 5 on the left, and the Garmin Edge 820 on the right. I also got some chest strap heart rate monitors I can use while swimming, biking or running.

Not the most intuitive things to use. I will need to spend some time with the manuals. But the watch looks good on my wrist!

Swimming While Travelling

So last weekend I made a trip to Green Bay to see my folks and to attend a Packer game. While there I took an hour and headed up to the local YMCA for a swim. They have a nice 4 lane lap pool there and rarely crowded. I briefly shared a lane but soon found myself swimming alone. It felt good to get a good 1500 yards in.

This week I am travelling to Nashville for a convention. I depart Thursday and return on Sunday. I had looked up the resort before I left and it appeared they had a lap pool at the resort! So after I got there I went and checked it out. Sure enough, 3 lap lanes built into the indoor pool.

So Friday morning, I threw on my suit, grabbed my necessary equipment and headed down to the pool.

I was pretty tired from my Tri-Swim class on Thursday morning still, so a nice and easy 1000 yard swim over about 25 minutes was what was on tap today. There was one lifeguard sitting alone in the chair and another lifeguard taking a nap on one of the loungers. It was quiet and I was the only one there. The fitness center was another story. That place was packed!

So with the swim done, I was ready for a day of conventioning, and then we explored Broadway and downtown Nashville that night.

Double Workout

So today was the first day of a Tri-Swim class I am taking at the YMCA. Max is my coach and also my daughter's swim team coach. Max and I swam on a relay together at Nationals earlier this summer and he is a 3x Ironman finisher. I had take a class from him over the winter on Sundays and learned a lot, so a 2x/week class early in the morning seemed like a good idea.

Although I consider myself a morning person, I am NOT a morning exercise person. I prefer to do my exercise at the end of my day in the evening. So I can't actually remember a time that I exercised right after getting up.

So the class was at 615am which means I had to wake up at 530, throw on some clothes (laid out the night before) grab my bag (laid out the night before) some caffeine and head downtown to the Y. I got there in plenty of time and got down to the pool.

5 of us in the class, all about the same age, 3 women, 2 men. We were all about the same ability level too. Made for a fun class. With a 650 yard warmup out of the way, we did some technique work and then some speed work. 1350 yards after the warmup, a nice even 2000 yard hour long workout. Felt good.

It was a rare fall day in Duluth today with a temp over 80 degrees. I wasn't going to ride my bike today, but you just can't pass up taking advantage of this weather. Soon it will be too cold to bike. So I grabbed my bike right after work and did a 13 mile out and back on the same road. New speed record with average speed over 15mph! Very exciting and felt real good too.

So my first double workout in a really long time (since I don't do mornings I can't remember when I last did it). I felt pretty energized after my bike, sore but energized, but now it is all coming crashing down and I am headed to bed.

How Far Did I Go?

So last night I hopped on the bike and headed out on the same path that I had taken the last few times. As I approached my normal turn around point (about 4 miles) I decided to just go another mile before turning around.

However, my watch was only displaying elapsed time and not distance, so I rode what I thought was another mile and then turned around. When I got home, it turns out that I rode 11.29 miles! So my estimation of a mile is off apparently.

Felt pretty good though.

Roy

After much discussion with the family, we decided on naming the bike Roy. With that settled, I took Roy out for another 8 mile spin tonight. It was a bit colder than Sunday so I wore a sweatshirt this time.

But the pace seemed good. My average speed was a bit better this time around. My butt didn't hurt as much this time around. So things are looking good.

Roy and I are getting along swell.

First Ride

On the recommendation of a friend, I spent some time leaned up against the car today trying to figure out how to clip in and out of my pedals.

Then I rode it in the grass, clipping and unclipping my way down the hill....

Riding it back up the street.

Then with a tiny bit of confidence I took her out for her first ride. 8 miles, 37 minutes. It was fun!

Still no name for the bike, though I have the family thinking about it too.

New Bike

So I went down to St. Paul yesterday to buy myself a bike. I had tried to do some research online but there are TONS of brands, and TONS of models within those brands. Everyone you ask has at least 2 opinions, so it is very unhelpful.

As I told my friend before I left I was mentally prepared for information overload and decision paralysis. What I was also prepared for was some sticker shock, but more on that later.

So I left Duluth about 6:30am in a dreary and rainy early morning. As I drove further south the weather improved and quit raining at least. I arrived at the store shortly after they opened. I went inside and they had tons of bikes. Road bikes, Tri bikes, mountain bikes, hybrid bikes, fat bikes....already overwhelming.

Future Decorations?

Then Rich comes up and asks if I need help with a bike. I said yes and we introduced ourselves and I settled in for a long day. I don't know if Rich expected to spend the next 6 hours with me or not, but thats what ended up happening.

Rich was incredibly patient. We spent the first hour talking about my history, what kind of biking I hoped to do, then what kind of road bikes (that term is too generic it turns out) there were, and what I might be interested it.

I decided pretty quickly that a hybrid bike was not what I was looking for, so we focused on road bikes. Talked about some of the brands, how they differ etc. We talked about components and levels of Shimano....oh the list goes on. Like I predicted, information overload.

So we picked out 3 different bikes to try. They put some flat pedals on them, and I took them all for about a 2 mile test ride. I hands down like a bike better than the other two. Not quite sure why, but I did. Then, and only then, did we even talk about price.

HOLY SH!T!! The bike I liked was way beyond what I was expecting to pay. Even above my high number.

So I told him that I was going to go to lunch and think about it. He gave me a recommendation for a great place for a burger and it was wonderful. Go check out the Nook if you are in St. Paul.

I walked out of the store and of course called my wife. I got the same response from her. Then I texted a friend and he said I would be very happy with that bike and that it would last me a long time. So with a full tummy and the ok of a couple of key people, I headed back to the store.

My new bike shoes

I had to buy, bike shorts (well actually a bike overall), bike shoes and a helmet. Those decisions were quite easy actually. Then with that, I hopped on this monstrosity to get fit for my bike.

The GURU Bike Fitter

It took about 30 minutes of adjusting seat height, fore/aft location, and the handle bar height and fore/aft location. They also used that time to explain how to clip in and out of the pedals.

So with the fit complete, then they finished building up my bike, gave me a quick demonstration of some basic maintenance, swiped my credit card and off I went with my new bike. A Cervelo S3

I have not yet named it, though the leading candidate is Charlie.

Running Still Sucks

Ok, so I last ran on Monday

I enjoyed it but apparently pulled a muscle and I was pretty sore until today. So today I decide to give it another shot. Same routine with a 0.3 mile walking warm up followed by a 5k run/walk/run.

Right away on the run, I could feel my left inner thigh tightening up. I pushed through the first mile, then walked the next 1.15 before finishing with the run/walk/run, though I shortened in the interval. I am seriously injured. It was really painful.

So on the google I went and apparently I have pulled an abductor muscle in my leg and it needs to rest for a while. So two runs and I am already too injured to continue.

Running sucks.

But I am all packed up for my trip to the Twin Cities to go bike shopping.

Running Sucks

So my biggest fear and weakest sport is running. I did some running 20+ years ago and I didn't really like it. I got convinced to do a 10k and it sucked (I did the same race 3 times over 4 years though). I ran a handful of 5k races over the years. The last one in 2006.

Basically I hate running.

Through the swimbikemom blog I learned of the run/walk/run method that Jeff Galloway preaches. This sounds amazing! I can so totally get into this and it sounds wonderful.

So I set up an interval timer on my phone to a 20s run with a 60 second walk. I already had a 5k route that I occassional use to walk the dog so I was all set. I knew I walked at about a 15:00/mi pace so I was curious how much faster I might be.

I did a .3 mile walking warm up and then off I went. I felt great! I stopped running at 20 seconds and it was just to the point where I was getting out of breath, then with the long rest I was ready to go again. I hit the 1 mile mark and my pace was 11:30/mi! Holy cow! That's way faster than I thought.

Then it hit me. I started to get a pain in my inner thigh, then it moved up to my groin muscle. I powered through it but after the second mile I stopped and just walked the remainder.

Dammit! I had injured myself on my very first run! God I hate running.

My legs were sore for days after. Not unbearable, or limping or anything just sore enough to think "I did something the other day."

So we will see how I feel later in the week.

Research

Took a couple of weeks off from thinking about this stuff. Went to Vegas for a long weekend, and then had a family reunion in Michigan followed by a work trip to Tennessee.

I have taken some time to do some research. Mostly on bikes.

Lordy, there is a lot that goes into bike shopping. Everyone has an opinion and a favorite bike.

The local bike shops here all cater to the mountain and fat bike crowds and there are virtually no road bikes available.

I talked to some friends about their suggestion and they all said to head to the Twin Cities and hit up the bike shops there. So thats where I am headed this weekend. Hopefully to come home with a bike and all the gear I need.

US Masters Swimming Summer Nationals

The USMS Summer Long Course Nationals were held at the University of Minnesota this year. As I mentioned before swimming is relatively new to me. I took swim lessons every summer as a kid and I enjoyed them immensely but I was never a competitive swimmer. In fact I didn't know it really even existed outside the olympics at that time.

So fast forward to fall of 2015 and I find myself with shoulder issues from lifting weights, and a desire to swim with my 9 year old daughter who was on the YMCA swim team. Frankly she made it look easy so I figured I would do it too.

So at the advice of my doctor I scheduled a set of 8 lessons with my daughter’s swim team coach. 25 yards was about all I could do without resting when I started. Swimming is harder than it looks. But focus on proper technique to prevent injury was the goal as I knew endurance would come. I was swimming 2x/week once with a lesson and once on my own.

That fall, the swim team offered a parent race during one of their meets. My daughter said I should try it out. So after a lesson on starting from the blocks, I was ready for my first 50 free race. It was a lot of fun. With that behind me I decided to join USMS and go to a meet. There is no team that gets together in Duluth, so I practiced on my own. My first official swim meet was in Dec 2015 and I swam 50 free, 50 back and 100 back. Breathing was still difficult, no flip turns (hadn’t learned how yet) but I did it and met some good people.

Me next to a "real swimmer" prior to a race

I swam regularly and competed monthly through the winter of 2016. I stopped swimming in the spring, switched to golf. In the fall, I joined another pool so that I could go 3x/week at the same time my daughter was at practice a mile away. That significantly helped my endurance and I started the next USMS season in the fall of 2016. I did 50/100 Free and 50/100 back. But in practice I was regularly swimming a 500 non stop.

In January 2017, a new coach on my daughter’s team started up a “Tri-swim” class. He held it two mornings/week and on Sunday afternoon. I couldn’t do the early morning ones, but I made many of the Sunday swims. They were long swims, and he worked me hard. Focused on technique, some speed work, some endurance work etc.

I was consistently getting a little bit faster at every meet. I will never say I am fast. I finish last in all my heats usually, and in my age group. But I do enjoy the competition against myself. At the spring state championship I upped my longest competition yardage to a 200 Free. I spend most of my time swimming freestyle now.

Unlike the year before, I continued to swim during the spring. Having never swam a long course meet before I swam one in June, and did a 400m Free in competition for the first time.

At the USMS Nationals they let anyone swim up to 3 events without a qualifying time. So I signed up to swim 3 events and on 2 relay teams. Thursday afternoon was a 50 back as part of a medley relay, and then on Friday 400 Free, 50 back, and 100 Free, and a 50 Free as part of a relay team. I had some great swims! The backstroke events sucked, but I had not been practicing them at all. I took 20 seconds off my 400m Free PR!

At Nationals, they hand out medals to the top 10 places in each age group. Fortunately not many people competed in some of my events in my age group and I managed to come home with 4 medals.

So I have really enjoyed swimming. It is really difficult. Prior to nationals I was focusing on learning flip turns and gaining endurance. Since nationals, a part of every practice is working on alternate side breathing. I will get there, but it is a slow process.

Trip to the Triathlon Store

My hometown of Duluth doesn't have a true triathlon store. I had just dropped my wife and daughter off at the airport in Minneapolis so I decided to stop at a triathlon store and see what questions they could answer.

So I stopped by Endurance House. They had just opened and I was the only one there and the sales guy spent at least 45 minutes with me walking me through the basics of equipment, what I need, what I might need to pay, options, recommendations etc. It was so great to just chat and not try to get sold anything at all. It really helped me feel at ease.

But man, there is A LOT OF STUFF!

Swim Bike Mom

So one day prior to my decision I was curious about how triathletes wear their timing chips. So off to the google I went and found my answer. As with most things google, one search led to another and I ended up on the swimbikemom blog. I got hooked and read nearly her entire blog. Then I downloaded her book. The whole thing just resonated with me. Her struggles, her accomplishments etc.

It was one of the many reasons I felt that I could possibly do this. So thanks Meredith!

TriTimTry

I have decided to become a triathlete.

What have I done? I am not a single sport athlete, much less a tri-sport athelete. This is crazy!

I have swam, in fact that is my current "sport." I have run in my past (very slowly), but I have never really biked.

Swimming is a sport I just picked up 2 years ago. I am slowly ramping up some yardage. I ran some 5k (12 years ago) and 10k races (18 years ago). I would never consider myself and my 11 minute miles fast. I haven't ridden a bike in over a decade. The last time was a mountain bike that I rode on some paved trails for about 10 miles.

So why am I combining 3 sports which I am not good in any of them. 2 simple words. Peer Pressure.

My masters swimming group has several people that also do triathlons. They have been trying to get me to do it too. Frankly it is something I have always thought about. I first learned of this sport right after college in the mid-90's. I can remember reading books from the library on Triathlon. It was fascinating to me that people would do that. Then adventure racing became popular. I would watch those crazy people do these long endurance events. So these types of things have always interested me to some extent, but I never did anything about it.

So here I am off to try this sport, and to document my progress and feelings along the way.