Goooooooooooood morning!
Guess what I just did? Signed up for my very first triathlon! 🙂
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I signed up for the Swim for Smiles Sprint Triathlon on July 24, 2011, right here in Chapel Hill! And guess what? Matt’s going to do it with me, too! 🙂 I think it will be a great first triathlon to do because it’s super low pressure. It’s a “family” triathlon, so they offer a relay option in addition to the option to do the race as an individual, and it’s not meant to be super competitive, just fun! I told Matt I’d wait for him on the swimming portion if he waited for me on the bike 🙂
The triathlon will be composed of:
- 250 m swim
- 11.6 mile bike
- 5 km run
Sweet! The swim is in a pool, not open water, which is kind of lame, but since this triathlon is right in Chapel Hill it’ll be super convenient and a great way to get used to the transitions before doing a more professional tri 🙂 Plus, it’s for a great cause — the proceeds benefit the UNC Children’s Hospital! I figure we’ll see how it goes and maybe sign up for a more serious one later in the summer.
I was flying through the registration yesterday when I saw this:
Estimated 100 meter swim pace?! Yikes. If you’ve been reading for awhile you know I’ve mentioned that I was on swim teams for years when I was younger, but at this point I had NO clue how long it would take me to swim 100 meters.
Good thing I already had plans to go to the UNC pool this morning for an early swim before class! 🙂
I timed myself swimming 100 meters (4 laps in the 25 meter lanes) this morning and finished in about 1 minute and 35 or 40 seconds, so I decided to put 1:30 in the submission form in the hope that by that point I’ll have worked on my swimming endurance again and become faster 🙂 My strokes and form are still good from my swim team days, and I can swim easily for a really long time, but when I’m pushing it and trying to go fast I get tired pretty quickly. Something to work on!
Our friends Tim and Lindsey are really into triathlons and might join us for the tri, too. We went out for a bike ride with them yesterday 🙂
We had PERFECT weather! I spent a few hours in the early afternoon working on a project with classmates and was SO excited to get outside when we were done.
We took Tim and Lindsey on our favorite 16 mile loop that goes by the Alpaca farm, but sadly the Alpaca’s weren’t outside today and there was a “for rent” sign at the farm… noooo! I guess they are leaving 🙁
At least we saw some cute cows 🙂
I heart biking. I will definitely be working on my biking endurance and speed before the triathlon! It will likely be my weakest of the three sports, but we’ll see. Either way, I’m really excited for this new challenge! As you know, I’ve done a ton of running races but no triathlons. It will be really fun to mix things up, especially since it will be crazy hot here in July and I won’t want to be running super long distances at that point 🙂
Any tips on what to wear for a tri? I’m nervous about the transitions! We don’t need wetsuits since it’s in a pool, so would tri shorts or something be the way to go?! What do I wear on top? Any advice would be much appreciated 🙂
As for training, my plan is to just keep doing what I’m currently doing! Running about 3 days a week (anywhere from 3 to 6 or 7 miles each time), swimming 1 day a week, biking 1 day a week, yoga 1 day a week, and 1 rest day. Once we get closer to the date I’ll probably incorporate a couple “brick” workouts where I bike and then run right afterwards, and drop one of the running days in favor of another bike or swim day, too. We’ll see! I want the tri to be fun and since it’s my first, anything will be an awesome time, so I just want to enjoy myself and not worry about time 🙂
I’m off to class — have a good one!
