My Romance: Officially Official

There you have it folks! It is officially official. I am registered to compete in my very first triathlon on August 8, at Lake Chaparral, Calgary. My mind is still reeling a little bit... am I really doing this? The greatest thing is that YES, I AM!! I am even considering registering for a second one in September, in Banff because I think the experience will be amazing. Good friends of ours, Stan and Heather, have been into biking and triathlons for quite awhile. Stan has even completed the grueling Trans Rocky 200km road race. WOW! Stan is training Heather, Cindy and I all together to compete at Chaparral. It is so nice to have a great support group and to know you aren't doing it alone. I think we'd really like to design a team shirt for race days, so throw any ideas you may have our way!
For those of you not familiar with triathlons, they consist of swimming, biking then running. The Lake Chaparral triathlon for the 'sprint' distance {vs. Olympic or Ironman distances} are 750m of open water swim, 15.5 km of biking, and 4.5 km of running. In my mind I am not really intimidated by swimming or biking but the run terrifies me. I am not a long distance runner and I never have been so this is the area I am going to have to really focus on... or so I originally thought.

You know when you are a kid spending your summer days swimming away at the lake or pool, you don't give a second thought to how far you have swam, you just do it, over and over and over again. And it was easy back then. I have always been a strong swimmer. I could have easily been a lifeguard but I never did the class, I should have - but didn't. Last week I had my first day {night, actually} at the pool doing lane swim in a very long time. My goal was to complete 500 m since that is about 2/3 of my race distance I thought that was a good start. Hmmmm. First of all I think I nearly inhaled half the pool water. Did I mention that it is a salt water pool? And that public swim is right before lane swim? GROSS. My technique/form was terrible. And my endurance - that was even worse. I completed my 500m goal or 10 laps {25 m there and back} as I gasped, coughed and gagged my way along. I even had to use the flutter board for a couple laps. I was so sad and discouraged but strangely motivated at the same time. There is nothing like putting on a bathing suit to make you realize what you've been trying to hide under clothing for so long. If I could swim in unrevealing clothes I totally would. Needless to say I slept like a baby {or a log} that night and I look forward to every swim night now! I think 750m in 4 months will look like a piece of cake. There is still the biking and running to deal with though.

Last Sunday morning I met with Stan and Heather at 7am to take an early morning stroll up the Cochrane hill. This hill is massive! If you've ever been here you know the exact one I'm talking about. Highway 1A that goes up past Glen Eagles. Thank goodness we didn't take the highway route, I was a little leery of the traffic. We took the residential/path route up the hill which is actually a little more winding and scenic. I am not used to getting up so early and to my detriment I put my left sock on inside out, unintentionally. About 5 minutes into the walk I had to stop and fix my sock/shoe; it was rubbing a bit and I thought it was just slouching down into my shoe so I pulled it back up and kept going. About 3/4 of the way up the hill I finally asked if I could sit down and take off my shoe, it was getting very uncomfortable by now. I was really surprised when I pulled off my runner and my heel was covered in blood that was leaking through my sock! In Stan's words, I'm so hardcore that I trained until I bled! Sadly our walk/hike was cut short as I had to try to walk all the way home with a damaged heel. Lesson learned, I will soon be getting fitted at The Running Room for proper running shoes.

Thankfully before the hill/heel incident I was able to get in a workout every day of the week except Fridays which is my complete rest day. I have already biked 10 km on the spin bike at the gym, so I am confident that 15 isn't so far out of reach. I keep telling myself to remember that I need to be able to complete all 3 events back-to-back! Now that my heel is healed, I am back at it.

Stan in all his wisdom and experience is encouraging me to do a mock triathlon here in Cochrane one day soon so that we can get a benchmark and be able to track my improvements. I am very scared of not being able to complete it and the three ugly letters DNF {did not finish}. That is my goal for Lake Chaparral - just get across the finish line in one piece. I think it is a smart idea, it is just very intimidating since I just started training. I am sure he is right. Happy training!!