Triathlon update for April

Yikes, it's been six days since I posted anything to this blog. Shame on me! How dare I get busy with paid work, looking for paid work, throwing my kid's birthday party and preparing to have 14 people over for Passover dinner this weekend?! No excuses, back to the blogging!

Because I'm still pretty swamped, I've decided it's time for a triathlon update, since this requires less thinking on my part. I do have some thinking-related things to write up and post, but I should have more time in the next few days for those. For now, I'm sure the curiousity about my training is just killing you.

It's April now, and I've made a decision about the triathlon. No, I haven't given up, I'm still going to do it. I have decided to do it in the early summer, before the end of July. There are several races in my area that I can do, so as soon as I feel I'm ready, I'll pick one. The big question is, am I up for a full Sprint Triathlon, with 700 metres swimming, 20 km biking and 5 km running, or do I need to do a baby triathlon, usually called Try-A-Tri, where the distances are shorter, usually 300m Swim, 14km Bike, 4km Run. I do know that whichever I choose, I want to swim in a pool, not a lake or an ocean, if at all possible.

My first choice so far is a women's only race, where the swim is in a pool. The only problem is that it takes place in a community known for its mountains. I'd like to see the bike route first to know how much of it will be uphill.

I have kept up my training, even springing right back after a foot injury in late February. I'm doing about five workouts a week, trying to run twice, bike twice and swim twice, which means combining two of the above in one workout. My trainer suggested a great site to help me plan my training, so I've tried to keep it all up.

But despite all of this, I still don't think I can do it. Two hours of hard on cardio seems so far beyond my abilities. No matter how long I've been training, I still find an hour hard biking or 45 minutes hard running difficult, and I can't imagine combining them. But a goal is a goal, so scared or not, I'll do it. I just might be walking my bike up a lot of hills and walking more than I run in the run part. On the bright side, the swimming doesn't scare me a bit.