I'm going to run a 5k race in two weeks, the same race I ran in 2008. The course will be different but it will still be in the same area of town, and it's the same name so I have a nostalgic tie. Also I want to pound my PR into the dirt and like, run 6 minute miles. That won't happen, but it's good to have goals in life.
Another goal of mine is to make another baby when sweet Lexi-lu turns two. Oooh, a rhyme. Unintentional at that! Anyways, since that only gives me like, six or seven months, I'd like to run more, challenge myself physically, before pregnancy and the post-partum bag-of-bones syndrome strike (seriously, the first jog I did about four weeks after giving birth was the most bizarre, humpy lumpy loose run ever, from all my ligaments and joints loosening and spreading in prep for labor).
Then I read an article on the Ironman triathlon: A two mile swim, 100 mile bike ride and a 26 mile "cool down" run. Then I threw up in my mouth a little. But once I rinsed with listerine and started googling triathlons, I realized that the Ironman obviously overdoes it a little bit, and I also realized I didn't need to beat myself up for 17 hours to feel like a badass. I could beat myself up in, say, two or three hours and feel pretty damn awesome.
Tucson has triathlons. One I checked out is an 875 yard swim (35 laps in a 25y pool); a 12 mile bike ride on relatively flat track, and a 5k run afterwards on a flat track. Hey, hey, hey! This sounds doable. I already do 3 mile runs, and I know how to swim AND ride a bike. I'm already awesome!
They have no dates posted for 2012 and the entering is already closed for the October one (not that I'm in any way ready), the last in 2011. I'm hoping that the dates will be relatively the same for 2012, because I could be ready by May of next year. That's right around when we'd start trying for a baby but if I completed a triathlon beforehand, I'd be more than willing to lie down, get pregnant and not move for the next nine months except to lift my head whenever someone walked by so I could tell them that I completed a triathlon.
So I'm running that race in October. And much like in 2008, my tendon has been bothering me. I'm a notoriously bad stretcher and it bites me in the butt (well, the tendons) every now and then. I stretch diligently for a few days, it goes away, and I'm off running around town with slowly tightening tendons until... Yeah, you get it.
Anyways, since I didn't want to eff them up any more than they already are, yesterday I hopped on a stationary bike for a 10 mile ride on a computer simulated course that was all hills and steep climbs. It kicked my ass and I funny-walked out of the gym after I completed it, feeling like I was one gust of wind away from falling over on my side. It made me seriously reconsider doing a triathlon... until I remembered, hey! It was all incline. A tri is on mostly flat surfaces!
And just like that, my over-confidence flooded back, and I stagger-strutted to the car, not an Ironman, but an iron-willed woman. Granted, it's getting cooler and the pool is going to be colder and colder at the gym and training the swimming part is going to be harder, but... Oh screw it, it's only 35 laps. I'll figure it out.
You know, I think I'm going to go for it.
DO IT!!
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