Auger, I think there are a couple options. If your friend wants to do the olympic in Vegas and would be put off enough by you not going that it would ruin your friendship, I would say either drop down to the sprint distance and go anyway if you think you can handle the training, or you could skip the tri altogether and just go to support your friend and have a fun weekend in Vegas. It doesn't solve too much of the money problem since I'm sure getting there is the expensive part, not the race itself, but it would be a show of support for your friend and let you see how a tri works before having to actually do it yourself.

If your friendship can survive you not going to Vegas, I'd skip it and go for the one close to home later. Is that one a sprint? With limited training time I would highly recommend doing a sprint instead of an olympic unless you're already used to running and biking long distances.



In other news, I learned at swim class last night that I have been doing breaststroke WRONG this whole time! (I'm imagining a LOLcat saying "Ur doin it rong!") Apparently the arm movements I was doing are the ones for *underwater* breast stroke and are not correct for regular breast stroke. Oops.

I would also not jump into an olympic distance tri withough a better base, especially if it is stressing you out. On the other hand, I can see your friend's point of view about bailing on her. If you do the sprint triathalon, you will have time to train (and if the 6 days a week is stressing you out, you can try to modify it to make it work...) Vegas can be done on the cheap, especially if you are not planning on partying too much before a sunday race. Just a thought. However, if your friend will not be too mad, just wait until June. She will forgive you; just maybe not right away

What Shea said. The sprint option would be great if you can swing it financially. For inspiration just watch Diet Tribe season two on lifetime. They were ready in 16 weeks from no activity. Training, logistics, money ,it's a lot of unknowns which cause stress. Give yourself a break.

I f your feel like you have to bail she will eventually forgive you, she's your best friend.

Ok, so I finally sat down and picked out a couple of competitions. I'm going to do a 5k on April 3rd, and then a spring tri (the CBI Tri out of the Woodlands) on May 2nd. I've already told my husband, and I'll sign up at the beginning of February, and make it a little public, to give me added incentive to train (my other ones, I had a distinct lack of training in anything but the swim portion; I basically did the bike/run cold, and it showed, but I was able to finish...this time I want to do the full training, but modified to fit the schedule I already have, so I'll have to think more on that over the next couple of weeks.

I'm still excited to have a goal!

Meredith

Ladies, thanks for the quick responses and support. The friendship will survive (I hope). We've been through worse. And we're both super stressed about money in general so not going would lift a huge financial burden off the both of us. So that may be the deciding factor, and I may not even have to mention the fact that I don't want to do a tri quite yet.

I've been thinking it over the past week so it's not a spur-of-the-moment decision, and I'm pretty set on not going. Now I just have to have this dreaded conversation. Gotta wait for the right time.

Thanks again!

Meredith, good luck on your 5k and sprint! I still haven't signed up for any.

Auger, did you talk to your friend yet?

I'm getting ready to transition from winter maintenance into training for the summer. Why is the weather not also ready for this? I'm finishing up the last stage of the NRLW strength training program so it seems like a perfect time. I need to come up with a new strength routine that I can do while doing tri training to keep up my muscle mass without making me too sore for running and biking.

I have a question for you folks -- do you have any training plans that are based on distance rather than time? The ones I found on beginnertriathlon.com (the free ones, at least) are all based on time, like, run for 17 minutes, etc. I need a distance-based one because I'm so slow that even if I meet all the times on the training plan, I won't actually be covering the distance that I need to.

I've not seen any free ones that are based on distance, but I haven't looked too hard yet. I need to find one for this upcoming event though, so I'll be looking in the next week, so I'll let you know if I see anything...

I think the one I used last year was based on distance I'll look for it. I agree it's much more helpful for me as well.
I'm still pluggin' along trying to add mileage. I've been getting SUPER dizzy and sick to my stomach when swimming lately. I need to figure that out. IDEAS?

Geranium, there are a couple things I could guess . . . Are you swimming really really hard? If so it might just be the general dizziness/nausea you can get when you work out too hard. Otherwise, maybe you aren't breathing frequently enough so you're running out of air? How long before swimming do you eat, and what do you eat? Is the temperature in the pool/pool area okay? Does it happen every time you swim, or only in certain situations? Does it happen while you are swimming or when you get out of the pool?

Sorry to answer a question with more questions!

Talked to my friend today kinda sorta. It didn't come out the way I wanted it to, but she seems pretty receptive. She still wants to do a tri the day we should've been doing the one in Vegas, and mentioned that she may just do one on her own. So I said I'd do a sprint with her around here just for fun...kind of a practice run, I'd say. That went over well, so I think we're good. Small price to pay, I guess.

So yeah, all is well And the official one we'll be doing is on June 26th about an hour north of here. I've heard really good things about it so it should be fun. I'm kind of excited instead of stressed, like I was before. Yay!

I actually think as a slow person its better to train by time not distance otherwise you'll be over-doing things and possibly over-training... I used the BT programs time based and it worked out OK for me at the time but you might want to ask more people about it. I think I did add in some longer rides in the end.

My IMgroup coach just send us the first weeks workouts for IM training! Eeek! I'm ready though... interesting to see where this will go.

Aug - Glad you talked to your friend... you will be better off if this is fun and not just a constant source of stress. There is plenty of time to do the longer races if you end up enjoying this.

Au, glad you worked it out with your friend!

I have a question for you folks. How do you bike in winter? Do you use a stationary bike at a gym/at home, do you use a trainer that you put your regular bike in indoors, or do you just have good enough weather that you can keep biking outside?

aug I'm glad it worked out. That must be a relief.

clippy : Theoretically it's possible for me to year round here. It rarely freezes in Seattle and snow only last a day or two if we get any. But I don't like to ride in the dark or in the rain. I'm not getting out there all that often lately. I love to go to spin class, but that doesn't always work out time wise. Classes are reservable in my gym so often class is booked before I know I'm free for it. Most often I do my own spin training on the spin bikes. I use the stationary bikes too, but the positioning is better for me on the spin bikes. It's closer to my actual bike. A trainer would be great, but our house is small with no basement. I couldn't leave my bike set up up in the house permanently without it getting on my nerves and in my way. I feel like this is not ideal, but It does keep my stamina up.

Ideal : Yikes!!!!! Good luck, I look forward to hearing all about your journey. Are you going to blog about it?