Next month we’re heading to Phoenix to watch son Mike participate in his 4th Ironman competition. At age 39, he’s in the toughest age group and hopes to break the 10-hour mark as well as qualify for the BIG Ironman in Hawaii.
Mike started training several months ago and follows a rigid schedule for his swimming, biking and running – a schedule that exhausts me just thinking about it but he’s also a third year resident in Family Med. Not like he has tons of free time or anything!
When we made our plans for the trip we knew we would stay for several days and enjoy Thanksgiving with our west coast kids. Mike immediately suggested that we do the Thanksgiving Day Triathlon together!
Huh?
He plans to do an Ironman and 4 days later, a triathlon?
Yep! According to Mike, he’ll be ready for the activity plus it’s just a “little” event – at least for him. And great family bonding time too – he’ll probably be done with the whole event before I’m on my bike!
So – I signed up for it and now I am committed. A two-mile run, a ten-mile bike ride and a 400-yard swim.
Some days it sounds doable, other days I know I have lost my ever-lovin’ mind. Today I’m somewhere in between those thoughts.
The bike ride is the least of my worries – that’s my sport of choice and even though I haven’t been on it since the MS150, riding 10 miles will not be a problem. And I’ll have a few days in Phoenix prior to the event when I can do some practice rides.
Running is not a favorite pastime of mine. I wish it were because it’s a great way to get in exercise in a short amount of time but it’s boring even with my iPod. The most I’ve ever run was an 8K for an event in Chicago a few years ago and after that, a funky knee forced me to abandon my Olympic running career.
However – the triathlon was a perfect opportunity to get new running shoes so now I lace them up and I’m running. This week I’ve progressed to 1.5 miles and my time is improving although I run each lap pretty steady…..and SLOW. I’ve considered entering the Bass Pro 5K in a couple of weeks for the group running experience – think I’ll wait and see what the weather forecast is closer to the event.
And then there’s swimming……….
I used to swim – in fact, I planned my divorce in the pool of my old fitness center where I would swim a mile every day on a regular basis. No one notices tears in the pool, your eyes are expected to look bloodshot and you also have plenty of time to think. Worked for me!
After not swimming for fitness for a couple of decades, the reality of how tough swimming is has hit me smack in the face! Whew! But after a week I’m up to 900 yards which is slightly over .5 miles and I did that without stopping in 22+ minutes. Now Michael Phelps is in no danger of me breaking any of his records but for an old lady, I’m just happy I can do it and still breathe when I climb out of the pool.
Knowing I’ll have to do these events back-to-back (run-bike-swim in this event), I quickly changed today and did my 1.5 mile run and then a .5 mile walk to cool down.
And I wonder why I’m exhausted tonight.
I may be older – not sure about the “wiser” part.
