Drown Bike Run
I'm not a swimmer. My experience in the water extends about as far as getting flung into the River Boyne at Bective one glorious Irish summer and learning by not drowning. In more recent times, this has been expanded to include misjudging the consistency of mud in a stream bank and going in ankle deep. Don't get me wrong, I've been in the water a few times, but mostly what you'd safely define as 'horseplay' or arsing about.
I'm not a cyclist. I'm fundamentally in the camp that believes the internal combustion engine far outstrips the human one and see no point in reopening the debate. I've owned one adult bike in my life - it was gold, it was hulking and it had 21 gears which I thought was great. I think I used 4 of them.
I'm not a runner. Even playing sports, if there wasn't a ball that had to be put somewhere, I just didn't see the point. Running in itself is not a challenge, everyone more or less has the ability. And given the fact that even on those rare occasions that I did run, in comparison to my opponent, I was always taller which meant less aerodynamic and probably heavier, so there was lower acceleration. Sorry, I meant no acceleration.
So you can see the problems a guy like me might encounter should he one night drunkenly and mistakenly declare that he was entering the Toronto Triathlon Olympic distance event. Yeah, I did that. For those who don't know, that equates to a 1.5km swim, 40km bike ride and 10km run.
The good news from my point of view is that I made the drunken declaration in January. The bad news is that there were witnesses. Nonetheless, the 6 months since have given me ample time to get ready for this. I'd be lying if I said I was 100% ready and prepared, but I have been training and I am now undeniably leaner than I've been in years.
The swim terrifies me. 1500m is probably further than I've swum in my entire adult life. Cumulatively. But I've been promised that my very expensive triathlon wetsuit, which makes me look like somebody stuffed a very large Pilsbury Doughboy into a baby seal, will turn me into a semi-competent swimmer. If nothing else, it will keep me afloat so that the rescue boat won't have too much work to do to fish me out of the water.
The biking doesn't overly worry me. Mostly because I haven't thought about it due to the fact that the swimming comes first. Plus, it's a lot easier to do in a gym. You sit on the thing and pedal. Give me my mp3 player and I probably won't even notice it going by. But, thanks to my dad, I do at least have a bike I can ride. I've been on it twice, and in terms of comfort, the seat resembles the top bit of a stone wall on a 13th century ruin. But it's a bike, and it's 2 wheels more than I had a month ago.
As for the running, my style has been described as 'just leaning forward and letting gravity and momentum duke it out.' My preparation has largely been of the train of thought that 'if I get that far, I won't quit' along with some poorly counted laps at a local running track. And in fairness, people I know who've done this have told me that stubbornness is a key part of endurance sports. Well, I'm part O'Brien and part Hynes. Let's do this thing.
Triathlons, how hard can they be?
I'm not a cyclist. I'm fundamentally in the camp that believes the internal combustion engine far outstrips the human one and see no point in reopening the debate. I've owned one adult bike in my life - it was gold, it was hulking and it had 21 gears which I thought was great. I think I used 4 of them.
I'm not a runner. Even playing sports, if there wasn't a ball that had to be put somewhere, I just didn't see the point. Running in itself is not a challenge, everyone more or less has the ability. And given the fact that even on those rare occasions that I did run, in comparison to my opponent, I was always taller which meant less aerodynamic and probably heavier, so there was lower acceleration. Sorry, I meant no acceleration.
So you can see the problems a guy like me might encounter should he one night drunkenly and mistakenly declare that he was entering the Toronto Triathlon Olympic distance event. Yeah, I did that. For those who don't know, that equates to a 1.5km swim, 40km bike ride and 10km run.
The good news from my point of view is that I made the drunken declaration in January. The bad news is that there were witnesses. Nonetheless, the 6 months since have given me ample time to get ready for this. I'd be lying if I said I was 100% ready and prepared, but I have been training and I am now undeniably leaner than I've been in years.
The biking doesn't overly worry me. Mostly because I haven't thought about it due to the fact that the swimming comes first. Plus, it's a lot easier to do in a gym. You sit on the thing and pedal. Give me my mp3 player and I probably won't even notice it going by. But, thanks to my dad, I do at least have a bike I can ride. I've been on it twice, and in terms of comfort, the seat resembles the top bit of a stone wall on a 13th century ruin. But it's a bike, and it's 2 wheels more than I had a month ago.
As for the running, my style has been described as 'just leaning forward and letting gravity and momentum duke it out.' My preparation has largely been of the train of thought that 'if I get that far, I won't quit' along with some poorly counted laps at a local running track. And in fairness, people I know who've done this have told me that stubbornness is a key part of endurance sports. Well, I'm part O'Brien and part Hynes. Let's do this thing.
Triathlons, how hard can they be?
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