I secretly (shhhhhhh!) would want to do a tri, but am 44 yrs old and think I would stroke out!

Seriously...I've gotten this body in decent shape (I think), but get scared and uncertain when challenged to put it to the test. I dunno...call it fear of commitment maybe?

Can someone tell me how long is the run, how many miles the swim and biking? I think I could prolly run 5K, swim a mile, and bike 5 miles??? Maybe followed by 2 strokes and a mild myocardio infarction though!

Anyhoot...maybe I'll just stand on the sidelines and cheer you all on!

ballerina454 - Welcome! Yay!! I like to see there are women here tri-ing! I am actually enjoying the mix of different exercises. I don't get bored b/c I am always switching between biking, running, swimming and strength training!

calluna - Good luck this weekend!! Are you excited? Nervous? Downhill scares me, too. I have this irrational fear of falling off my bike. I mean - people fall off all the time. You brush yourself off and get back on. But the thought terrifies me. I know with more practice, I will get better (besides, I fell off my bike all the time as a kid)

joyfulloser - You could TOTALLY do a tri. I read all sorts of stories about people who start training at all different ages! The one I am doing is a sprint triathlon. It is 1/2 mile swim, 12 mile bike ride, then a 5k run. There are some little "practice" tri's in my area over the summer that I am thinking about doing. They are like 1/4 mile swim, 8k trail ride and 5k trail run. (This place also does MINI tri's which are 1/8 mile swim, 3 mile bike, 1 mile run) i figure doing a couple would be good practice for the transitions and such before my big day on Sept. 11 when I do my "real" triathlon! Eek! Less than three months to go.

ah I am so jealous! Good luck for the weekend, calluna! My triathlon plans have been shelved because I'm having a foot operation, but I am going to find one in London next year and register for it early. I was gonna do a sprint this year, but seeing as I will have a whole year to train, I think I'll go for an olympic one

Good luck and keep tri-ing (terrible, I know!)

joyfulloser, you could do it. The real key is building up slowly. Go to the pool and swim a lap. Rest. repeat. Do the same on the bike - ride a mile the first day. The golden rule is never to increase your distance by more than 10% a week, and to take every fourth week as a lighter or recovery week.

The race I do this weekend is 500 yards (10 laps); 10 miles bike ride; and 3.1 mile (5k) run. Not hard at all. They vary a little, as scraver pointed out - my last one had a 900 yd swim and mountainous, gravelly 6 mile ride.

Thanks everyone for the well-wishes; I'll tell you all about it after the race! Good, bad, and ugly.

YIPPEE! What an awesome race. I had a GREAT time and did really well - 1:21:29.

Swim: 9:20. I think this is the time they told me as I got out of the pool, and they didn't give us the "official" breakout of times in the preliminary race results - just the total times.

I registered for this event in February before I'd ever had a timed swim of any kind. I put in about twice the amount of time it would take me (20 mins)and so was at the tag end of the swimmers. Argh.

Still, well prepared and had a great swim - very pleased -- wish I'd had a bit more warmup time is all.


Bike: Don't know the time for sure. However, I smoked the big downhill, handled the two large climbs, and in general did the course about as well as I could have wished today.

Run: No time on this yet. This was every bit as challenging as I expected it to be with the many hills and dirt course; I think I did well enough but it underscores the need for more hard work on my running. Also...it's a good thing there was an aid station there with gatorade; I had opted to leave my powerbar gel behind in transition and regretted it - a lesson learned on race nutrition.

Total time today: 1:21:29
Rank: 7/? in AG, 25/65 for women overall. I was very, very happy with my race. Felt good afterward. Can't wait to improve for the next one!

I am training for a trial its in 4 days but I just hurt my back from falling down stairs and MT leg from im not sure. Im not allowed to do it now :'(

calluna - Congrats on the awesome race the other weekend!!

aussienerd - sorry about the back injury! I hope you are taking care of yourself!!


So - My triathlon is on 9/11. In the meantime, I have gotten an itch to ALSO train for a Half Marathon. There is one that looks like fun coming up on 9/18... as in one week after my tri. 12 weeks from now. Is that nutty of me to think of doing it?? I ran six miles on Sunday. I feel like I need to build up some emdurance. Maybe do some strength training on my legs.

SCraver how's the training going?

Anyone else still have an upcoming race?

I did one this weekend that was pretty killer-heat wise, but the race handled it beautifully with ice, sprinklers, and dunk tanks. So nice to have such a well run race. They even had a roving truck asking if we needed water! The race took me so much longer then last year because of the heat though. Ugh very unpleasant and so very little running involved.

Training for a Tri and a HM at the same time is not as "easy" as I thought it would be. The other week, I was feeling really excited for my Tri but today... I am feeling a little nervous.

Everything hurts. Mostly in a good way. I am not losing any weight (um, b/c I keep EATING) I am going to take the fall/winter to maintain the progress I have made in my fitness and focus on some strength training and on weight loss.