So Now I’m Running a Triathlon

Yesterday, a colleague sent me an email asking if I wanted a complimentary entry to a sprint triathlon in May. He had some passes to give away and had heard I was interested in endurance sports. I did not wake up that morning planning on entering a triathlon and, truth be told, if you had walked up to me and asked if I ever wanted to do a triathlon I would have probably said no. I obviously enjoy running, but while I find cycling to be a perfectly pleasant way to get from point A to point B I’ve never had much interest in doing it competitively, and although I’m a competent swimmer in the “don’t drown if the boat sinks in view of shore on a calm day” kind of way, it is not a pretty sight. But, when I got the email, I found myself replying and asking what the requirements were for the type of bike we needed to supply. This is a tried and true method I use to get myself to do things I probably shouldn’t— I’m not going to actually eat a bunch of cookies, I’m just going to go look in the pantry to see how many cookies we have; I’m not actually going to take a personal day tomorrow, I’ll just put it into the website now so the sub gets assigned and I can cancel it later if I start feeling more motivated. I’m an expert at leading myself along in small stages until I’ve got a full head of steam going toward making a bad decision and it feels too late to turn things around. So, I started a conversation about what was involved in the race, and that led to me checking out the website to see what the course looked like, and then I felt like I might as well sign up for it after all. So, in about 8 weeks, I’m doing a sprint triathlon.

There are, in fact, several reasons why I think this is a good idea. It will be good cross training for my half marathon road trip this summer. And participating in something like this will give me some good opportunities to publicize the fundraising elements of my half marathon road trip (in fact, if you ended up here because you wanted to read about triathlons, you should know that this website is part of a fundraising campaign I’m doing for the National Diaper Bank Network by running 5 half marathons in five states this July. Check out the rest of the website for more details!). But honestly, I feel like I’m in a phase where if I don’t constantly challenge my brain with productive problems, the unproductive problems are going to completely swamp me. Worrying about the fact that I’m going to do this tri is gives me a problem I can actually work on. Expending energy and time thinking about this and preparing will in fact lead to some kind of result. The same cannot be said for reading the news over and over again and arguing with people on the internet about Chuck Schumer or something. Any application of my anxiety that will actually produce a measurable result is a good application of my anxiety. So, let’s get anxious about swimming!

I feel like I should emphasize that this is a SPRINT triathlon, not some kind of Ironman nonsense. Its going to be an 800 yard swim, 15 miles on the bike, and a 3 mile run. And I’ll also emphasize that when I say “train,” I basically mean keep building up my running mileage, maybe with some biking thrown in. I don’t have access to a pool right now, and joining a gym for a few months because I’m taking advantage of a free triathlon entry doesn’t seem cost effective. But it does give me some added incentive to get heart rate up every day, and to be careful about my diet for the next few months. But as for today, I’m home sick and can’t train at all— I caught a day care bug from my kids last week and didn’t give myself enough rest to recover so it has turned into something more frustrating. So today, I’m not getting any mileage in and am instead devoting my energy to watching movies (The Substance, Death of Stalin) and writing the blog. If you’ve made it this far and would like to get involved with my fundraising campaign, please hit the Donate button at the top of the page— even small contributions help. Thanks!