Maybe a Triathlon?

I am supposed to participate in my first triathlon this coming Sunday. I say maybe because I am not feeling great, reminiscent of the great winter plague that almost ended me about 6 months ago. Chest/Lung tightness, wheezing, some coughing, etc. Its odd because I don’t really have a cold or anything else. Last time I had a fever for almost 2 weeks, so we’ll see. However, I am supposed to do this race, so we’ll see if it will happen.

The race is a 1/2 mile open water swim, a roughly 17.7 mile bike ride, and a 5k (3.1 mile) run. I did a dress rehearsal last week on the course with some people who are in way better shape than I am. The swim was way harder than I was anticipating. It was shocking to me how hard it was to swim that far, even slowly. Granted, I haven’t done any real swimming in many years. About once every year or two I will swim a little bit, but I have never trained.

The bike portion was also hard, but mainly because the people I went with rode at about 20mph, while my average pace in “training” has been about 15 mph. I do think I can probably do 18-19 mph during this race, so we’ll see. I have only ridden about 8 times since I got the bike.

The run is where I’ll be fine. However I’ll only be able to make up a few minutes on that portion. After looking at how people did last year, I’m pretty confident i’ll be close to last. My goal should really be just to finish, which I probably can but it won’t be pretty.

If I survive I will provide a recap.

Run Forrest Run

2015 has been a challenging year for me (and us) in many ways. One of the inevitable casualties of being busy has been my 3 year old running hobby. At this point in the year I have run 380 miles, an average of 11.17 miles per week.

My best month has been July with about 72 miles. Contrast that with last summer where I ran over 200 miles in July. Ouch.

Part of the reason has been that the winter was particularly cold, and I did not have a gym membership so I sat out many cold and snowy days. I also ate too much and gained weight. I lacked motivation and my mileage suffered. Getting back from that is hard.

My work schedule and home life schedule also are not ideal for running now. I work 8-5 but with my commute its really between 6:30am and about 7:30pm that I am busy. I have figured out a good way to work around that by running at work during my lunch break. I can usually get in a nice 3-4 miles every day that I want to (at least until it gets below about 25 degrees). I have a gym membership through work that lets me shower and use the gym as well.

Unfortunately, my main running partner is also very busy with his own life, which has contributed to my lack of running as well. Last summer we ran frequently and for longer distances. We also had races we were training for together. Having a running partner to push you and a goal to shoot for greatly helps with putting together large amounts of mileage.

At this point in 2015, I will probably not run any races. I am in good enough shape that I could probably run a 5k in the low 20s, but it would not be a PR. The same goes for other distances. I could probably do a Half Marathon in about 1:42, although that is a pretty big guess. I haven’t run over 10 miles in almost a year, which is a pretty sad thing. With a new baby on the way, I just lack the desire to pay for and complete a race where I don’t really challenge myself and am not proud of the time.

My goals for 2016 (or beyond) however, assuming I am able to start putting together some mileage, are:

5k – 19:30 (first goal), 18:59 (stretch goal)

10k – 41:59 (first goal), 39:59 (crazy optimistic goal)

Half Marathon – 1:32:30 (first goal), 1:29:59 (insane goal)

Marathon – 3:49:59 (first goal), 3:29:59 (extremely optimistic goal)

These goals are not going to be easy to hit, but I have never run a race where I didn’t at least improve upon my time, so I’d like to keep up that trend. Hopefully 2016 sees a better amount of mileage and consistency from me. I would also like to start doing a few smaller triathlons possibly next year, although that will require me to get a bike, which requires me to spend money. See below post for my feelings on that.