1 month to go!!

My half ironman is August 22nd, 2010. I'm writing this at 10:46pm on July 21st, 2010. So.. I have one month to go before my first ever half ironman (and only 2nd ever triathlon). I'm fairly confident I won't die and am optimistic that I can finish the race before the cutoffs.

Just to recap, the race distances are, and order are:
swim 1.2 miles, bike 56 miles and run 13 miles.

I swam 1 mile today for the first time ever! It felt pretty good I must say. I actually haven't figured out how to swim in a straight line yet, so with all my left turns and getting way off course, I actually swam more than I mile I think. :) I do need to figure out how to swim in more of a straight line though. The other racers probably would get mad if I keep swimming over them.

The biking is going fairly well. I think my longest ride is 50 miles.. Something like that. The only problem is that I've been doing a lot of group rides, and that means drafting. Even if I am not necessarily trying to draft, with such a large group of riders, we really do cut into the wind pretty well. But the bike should be my best event. I've been consistently doing 30 - 40 mile rides every week. This week I did some crazy hills in Pataskala, OH on Monday. We even hit 46 mph going down a hill! It was amazing, and scary. I then did 28 miles tonight (Wednesday), will do 18 miles on Friday, and might do 62 miles on Saturday.

Running will be my worst event. I thought it would be the swimming, but now that I've done a mile, I'm feeling pretty good about it. But the running is a different story. My longest run is 7 miles. I need to probably get up to 10 miles in 2 weeks and then I will be good to do 13 miles at the race (I hear from my runner friends). I'm still confident (somewhat). I need to put in some more running soon. I also am starting to do more bricks (riding and running back to back). I'm really contemplating doing the metric century (the 62 miles) on Saturday and then will attempt to do a 4 - 5 mile run as well. But.. we'll see.. Gotta do it soon though, so why not try it, eh? Or.. I could totally skip the metric century and try to just run 8 - 9 miles. We'll see. Maybe I'll reach out to my triathlon friends and get advice.

I'm often asked why I am doing this race and usually I say it is because two of my really good Marine friends are doing it (well, one's retired) and they are really in shape, and I'm doing it for the common man! :) And that is part of it. I've been best friends with these guys for 20+ years and it would be a great activity to do together. Another reason is.. why not? I mean, I'm currently single, have time to train since I have a pretty flexible schedule and want to prove to myself that I can do it. And lastly, when I was growing up, I watched the Iron Man competition every year. And yes, I watch odd sports for an American I think (Soccer, Tour de France are two of my favorite sports to watch!). But every year I'd watch it. This was the big one out of Hawaii. Dave Scott won the competition 6 times in the 80's. For the full ironman, double the distance for my half ironman (seems obvious, but hey.. you never know). I never grew up thinking I could do that, or even thought of trying. I did mostly sprint sports growing up. I did soccer, tennis, wrestling, the sprint distances in track and even tried gymnastics one year. But I never did cross country.

Although I did do 2 small duathlons when I was younger. The only one I remember was a 3 mile run, 18 mile bike and 3 mile run. I believe I was around 14 or 15 and still remember the pain that I had experienced doing the second run after the bike! So I'm trying to do much better at my training for this. Ha..

My friends want to do the full ironman next year (or maybe the year after). We'll see how this goes before I commit to that. Ha..

My goals for this race:
1) FINISH!
2) Don't get last place in my age group! (not sure how realistic this is)
3) Don't stop swimming, biking or running (mostly concerned about running, and again, not sure how realistic this is)

I'm looking forward to this being over though. I love the bike training honestly, and am starting to appreciate the swimming. But I don't think I'll swim before work too much after this race, although you should really see the lake in the morning, without people there, and the with the sun coming up. It is a great way to start the day! And the running.. um.. I'm not quite sure I'll miss it really. :)