*** Wow! This entry got pretty long! It's a conglomeration of about 10 blogs that I've been wanting to write for the past several months, but kept procrastinating, so if you don't want to read the whole thing, I'll go ahead and skip to the important stuff: Sponsor Me!
When I decided to do this triathlon, I was basically a couch potato. A few months before, my exercise consisted of walking to the park and some Jane Fonda videos. But I got bored with Jane and it was too cold for outdoor walks, so I hadn't done anything for a while.
So I started training for the triathlon in late December, but I didn't have a bike or access to a pool (and no money to remedy that situation) so I did the only thing I could do - I starting running. I took Chester (my dog) with me and the first week out, I could barely run 2 blocks before I had to stop and walk for a bit. My goal was to run for about 20 minutes 3 times a week, but the cold weather and my lazy nature collaborated to make running even once week a miracle sometimes. I used my Christmas money to buy a fleece sweatshirt and some running shoes, so that encouraged me to run up to twice a week.
After the first couple weeks, I could feel a difference. I still needed to walk, but not as frequently. I really felt like I was making progress when I realized that Chester was holding me back, so I would run with Chester for about 15 minutes, pass by the house again to drop off Chester and then keep running.
In March I visited my brother in NY. He's does a lot of races and knew I was training, so he suggested that I run a 2 mile fun run with him. My 10 year old nephew joined us. 2 miles was a big deal for me, at the time I was running a little over 1.5 miles on my runs, and still stopping to walk once or twice. My brother was nice and kept pace with his son and I did my best to keep up with them. And of course they didn't stop to walk. It was rough, but I survived.
Once the heat of summer hit, it got harder to keep running in the brutal southern sun - somedays it was over 85 degrees by 8:30am, and this was just May/early June! So I slacked off took off a couple weeks and just waited until after we moved to resume my training.
I joined the YMCA first thing after moving to our new town. It was literally the first thing I did because I took the kids and was signing up for the Y while Casey was at the house helping the movers unload the truck. The YMCA has a pool. Two down, one to go - I still didn't have a bike. The Y does have stationary bikes, so I started working with that, but I don't know if it's the same thing.
I love the Y. It has great childcare and the boys like it (well, "like it" is a strong word for anything that doesn't include me, I should say that they "accept it" which is the best I'll ever get for a drop-off childcare situation). My first couple workouts in the pool were like my first attempts at running, but I was still surprised that it only took about 15 minutes to finish the length for my triathlon race. Now I feel pretty good about the swim and I can finish in just under 10 minutes.
So lately I've been focusing on the biking and running. Last week I tried the full lengths for bike and running back to back - 12 miles on the bike and 3.1 miles running. Now, working out at the Y is nice because it's got A/C and the bikes have individual TVs and when I was doing this particular 12 mile bike ride, I found Pride and Prejudice on the Oxygen channel (the Keira Knightly version), so I was actually disappointed when I finished (of course I finished right when Elizabeth was ready to accept Darcy's final proposal). The run was a bit tough. My heart and endurance were okay, but my leg muscles were really tired. I wanted to stop, but I forced myself to get through it, and I survived.
So now I kinda feel like I'm in pretty good shape for the race, except for one thing - I'm still biking on a stationary bike. My mom is letting me borrow her bike and I just got my helmet yesterday, so soon I can start biking for real and find out if my training on the stationary bike was any help.
Now, you've made it to the end of this super long blog entry! And again, here's the good part:
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