Well.... It's official. I have signed up for my first Olympic distance triathlon. I will be doing the inaugural Washington DC Triathlon on June 20th, 2010. I have been hesitant to sign up for a race for a couple of reasons - one, it is an imposing distance for me to race, and two, registration fees for these big city triathlons are a bit (ok a lot) more than I thought they would be. I'm used to the $25 10k road race registration fees, this triathlon is a bit more than that. Amy has been asking me which races I have signed up for, and I kept putting her off saying I was still looking for one. The other night I was showing her the website for this race, and wham.... she was signing me up. It was what I needed, an internet kick in the ass to get moving and commit to a race.
So now what do I do? I have been running and swimming fairly consistently, but now that I have a race I need to step it up a bit. Of course I am saying this on the day we get two feet of snow in DC. Olympic distance triathlons are a big step up in distance from the little sprint tri I did last September. This DC race is 1.5K of swimming (in the Potomac), 40K of biking (two laps of course that takes me through Georgetown and up the Rock Creek Park and around the Lincoln), and then a 10K run down the mall (with a finish up Capitol Hill). It should be a good race for spectators with the looping bike course and the run down the
Mall. I'm still not so sure about swimming in the Potomac - its a long way from my nice crystal clear, and chlorinated pool. No matter what the air temperature is on race day I
think I will be wearing a wetsuit if only to ward off chemical burns.
So right now my biggest concern is training for the bike. I love the bike that I have (Thanks Scott!). But I just haven't had the time, opportunity, or motivation to go on a multi hour ride. I
guess I have some time before June to work on that. I'm sure many people training for triathlons have this problem, its easy to get a good workout in doing an hour of running or an hour of swimming, but an hour of biking for some reason is just harder for me to do. Maybe its just that it is winter, maybe its the two feet of snow on the ground, maybe I just don't like the bike aspect. Well in any case, I don't have a choice now, I have committed myself to a race, and that is the first big step.
Congratulations on signing up for a big one! We'll be there to cheer you on!!
ReplyDeleteLove you! M & D :) :)
Long bike rides are more fun with friends! Build up a base doing group rides on the weekends (just 1-2 hour rides), keep commuting to work on your bike, doing intervals along the way, gradually increasing the intensity/length of your intervals until you're looking at doing as much of the entire ride in as a TT (of course, with traffic, lights, etc, you'll still have to stop, but the intervals will be good practice for the kind of extended effort you need to maintain in a TT).
ReplyDeleteTT riding takes a lot of mental focus to stick to it, esp in an olympic tri--if you can bear it, plan one of your weekend rides each week for a couple months beforehand to do some kind of uninterrupted time-trialing, dialing in your position and just getting used to being in aero position for 40K. The other thing that would be good to practice a few times are the switchovers between sports, e.g., swim a little bit at a good intensity then hop on the bike, bike a little bit then go for a run, cuz the starts of each of those feels FUNKY as you may remember...Drop me a line if you want to talk about finding ways to fit in the training : )
If I come down to DC at all this year, I'll bring my bike and we can ride a bit! The invite is still open for any triathlon in the central NY region, even a sprint as a warmup-runthrough...Just let me know far enough ahead of time that I can make it!
Congrats!!! Super exciting! You rock! I hope to join you in the next one!!!
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