Triathlete in the making

I know I can tend to be such a "random" person in the spontaneous choices that I make, and this is probably one of them, but I can't tell you how excited I am about it!

I am going to train for a triathlon.

I have gathered a 22-week training schedule that I laid out in a nice 11x17 format to put on the fridge. I talked my roommate into doing it with me since we both have bikes now (well, not officially....but I will by the end of the week!), our neighborhood has an olympic size pool, and we have miles of sidewalks within our reach for the running portion. Since I leave for AZ/CO tomorrow and when I return, she leaves for a missions trip to Poland, we won't be able to start until the end of July - which puts our 22-weeks ending in the winter. So, realistically we'll end up training for more than 22 since there won't be any available triathlons until the spring (although I may look into flying somewhere to get to one...we'll see).

Where did this all come from? Well, I'm a goal-oriented person. In fact, I discovered that I don't enjoy certain types of exercises that don't have some kind of goal in mind. For instance, just going for a walk...bores me to death. Now, going for walk where every block I change up walking, lunging, back-pedaling, etc. - that I enjoy because I have a goal to reach the end of each block and it doesn't seem like one long endless journey. SO, lately I've been swimming a lot. In fact, it's been so gorgeous, that when I get off work, most days I head to the pool and just swim. On top of that, I'm looking forward to a lot of biking once that comes in, and when I talked to my mom last weekend I mentioned how I would really love to become a runner even though I know it's not wise and it's hard on your joints, etc, etc., etc. (all the reasons I keep my running indoors). Well, even though all of those forms of exercise were seperate thoughts, this morning I realized I could utilize them all together, set a great goal to do the triathlon with mini "weekly" goals along the way. I started researching and with baby steps and long term goals, I think it is completely doable and MUCH more appealing to me than just running a marathon.

So, there you have it! I'm sure I'll be updating my progress throughout the 22 weeks. If you are interested in training as well, just let me know and I'd be happy to email you a schedule.