Jumping In

Well, today kicked of the Cook, Train, Eat, Race Virtual 140.6 (iron distance triathlon).  This is my kind of race.  The cutoff is 30 days instead of 17 hours.  Surely that is well within my capabilities.  I don't have to do all of the swimming at once or even before I do any of the other stuff.  I can mix and match it as I need to.  I'm still waiting for the spreadsheet where I am supposed to track all of this stuff, but in the meantime I figured it is good to do it here like I always do.  A bonus was the low entry fee (which was a donation to Jason's charity of choice "Shape Up America").

The biggest reason I signed up is that I've kind of been slacking on my triathlon specific goals and training.  I have been relatively consistent on getting in some form of exercise between Stacy (bedtime P90X and Just Dance workouts) and Susan (Tuesday runs) and a few virtual runs (holidays, freezing thorns and Remember Sherry).  But actually swimming and biking has been kind of few and far between, shamefully enough.  I'm stoked to have this new goal to push me to get back in the game.

So tonight, even though the weather was kind of snowy, I headed to the Y to knock out some of the of the 2.4 miles in the pool (since open water isn't an option in Missouri in the winter).  I devised a new plan to deal with my complete inability to count laps.  I took 5 of these little plastic tokens that go to a game the kids used to have.  Every other lap, I would move a token from one pile to the other.  Even with this there were a few times I had to really think as to whether or not I'd moved the chip last lap or not, but I think I got it right.  I moved them from one pile to the other, then back and back again plus two more chips towards another pile move.  This means I did 1700 yards or 0.97 mile.  It took about 50-55 minutes though I didn't look at the clock when I got in the pool so give or take 5-10 min.  No super speed here, but that is why I like this 30 days cutoff stuff! 

My plan is to take the kids to school tomorrow morning and meet Susan for some time on the stationary bikes at the Y.  We were supposed to run, but the snow and possible ice is going to nix that.  It should melt off quickly though so shouldn't be a big issue.  We could also go on the indoor track, but at 14 laps/mile, it gets a bit tedious.  I kind of hit her up for some bike time since I know I may struggle to get in my 112 miles if I have to do it all alone indoors.  Then we both have to work the school Valentine parties at 12:45 so the day will be pretty shot.