You'll never know until you TRI

As a lot of you know, I trained for and completed the Marine Corps Marathon last fall.  As I talked about in my other blog, I was never really a "runner"- in fact, I was a competitive swimmer, and I abhorred running. When I had to go for a twenty-minute run for lacrosse practice, I was in pain the whole time ("my achilles hurt!" was my excuse to walk). After college, I really wanted to start doing triathlons, since I already had the swimming part under my belt.  The only problem was: I didn't have a bike. Sure, you can just go buy any old bike and ride it in a race; no one would stop you. But I wanted to save up enough money to buy an actual racing road bike, which is NOT cheap.  So, in the meantime, I figured I might as well develop my "weakest" sport: running.  I began doing my first 8K the fall after I graduated,  then a 10K, up to my first half marathon. I discovered that I could actually like running (astounding), and so even though I finally had enough money to buy a bike after a year, I trained for and completed my first full marathon.

After the marathon, I took a deep breath and started looking at a new horizon: tri's.  I do have a new passion for running, but marathon training can get very monotonous- putting in up to 50 miles in a seven day period can be mentally (let alone physically) exhausting.  To tell the truth, at some points I just wasn't enjoying it anymore, and that's really the point, isn't it?  Now, since I have to balance between running, swimming, and biking, plus fit in strength training, yoga, etc., I feel happy when I get to run, which is a huge psychological shift.

I have signed up for my first triathlon, which is the "Rumpus in Bumpass" (yes. that's what it's called) in Rumpus, Virginia on April 14.  Ok, well, technically it isn't my first; I actually did a sprint triathlon with my dad when I was about 13 or 14.  So I decided to start out with an Olympic/International distance tri.  I'm hoping to do a few Olympics and eventually work my way up to a Half Ironman.  Just for your information, these are the standard distances for triathlons:

Sprint triathlon:

Swim: 0.5 mile (750 meter), Bike: 12.4 miles (20K), Run: 3.1 miles (5K)

International/Olympic triathlon: 

Swim: 0.9 mile (1.5K), Bike: 24.8 miles (40K), Run: 6.2 miles (10K)

Half Ironman:

Swim: 1.2 miles (1.9K), Bike: 56 miles (90K), Run: 13.1 miles (21K)

Ironman:

Swim: 2.4 miles (3.8K), Bike: 112 miles (180K), Run: 26.2 miles (42K)


That's right. An Ironman race consists of swimming two and a half miles in open water, then biking over a hundred miles, and then running a marathon.  Yikes.  Running a marathon in itself was enough (ha).

So anyway, I have already started training for the Olympic distance tri in April at the same time that I am training for a half marathon in March, so I have to balance enough running mileage with getting enough swim and bike workouts.  Since a couple of you have asked me what I do to train, here's a sample of what I do (this is from a couple of weeks ago):

Monday: lunchtime: 45 minute spinning class; after work: swimming 2800 meters (about an hour)

Tuesday: running 5 miles outside; plus abs and pushups

Wednesday: 5:30 am: master's swimming practice 3800 meters; lunchtime: 45 min spinning class

Thursday: 2.5 miles running on the treadmill, then 45 min personal training

Friday: Rest day (these are important!!)

Saturday:  Running 10 miles outside

Sunday: 90 min bike ride outside (about 22 miles)

Obviously, some weeks I don't have as much time as others, and I don't do two-a-day workouts all the time.  It ends up being about once or twice a week, just out of necessity,  so that I get all of the different sports in. But I really love it so far, because I have started to get to a whole new level of fitness- someone told me recently that tri's seem to "agree" with me.  So I hope you'll join me on this new fitness journey!