With less than 2 months until my first half iron distance triathlon, I have to confess I've experienced excitement, anxiety, anticipation & frustration. At this stage, I hope to keep it all in perspective as I continue to train.
While doing some cross training with weights 2 weeks ago, I bent slightly at the hips and leaned over to put down a barbell (at the same weight I've used for weeks/months) and felt a "POP". Almost dropping to my knees, I was very painfully reminded of how important good body mechanics are. The old saying I've told my patients for years, "lift with your legs, not your back" was ringing in the back of my head. It took almost a week to recover 80% range of motion and completely shut down my other training for a while. Talk about frustrating! The good news is rest, ice first for 1-2 days (then heat), anti inflammatories and gradually increasing range of motion got me back on track. I'm still having some discomfort, but that's ok, just glad to be moving again.
I FINALLY was able to get into the local university aquatic center and have been building up my swim distance/endurance. This in my opinion will be my greatest limiter (weakness). My goal is to finish the 1.2 mile swim portion in 45 minutes or less. Right now I'm doing well to finish in an hour. I have a lot of work to do! I'm hopeful my technique will improve as well as endurance. It just gets frustrating to be able to bike for several hours or run for 2+ hrs without too much difficulty, but wear myself out swimming for an hour. At this stage I'm reminded painfully of another famous triathlon quote: "You won't win a triathlon on the swim (by swimming 2-10 minutes faster), but you can sure lose (by wearing yourself out)!" I've been hitting the pool about twice/week and really need to be in the water at least 3 times.
Running update: I had a nice 10 mile training run last week (and a long swim the same day), without too much next day soreness. Tonight after work, my lovely bride and I will drive to Oxford, Mississippi for the Oxford Run for Hope (http://www.oxfordrun4hope.com). The original plan was for me to do the half marathon (as a training run) and she was going to do the 5k (with hopes to do the half next month in Jackson, TN). I'm proud to say she has slowly increased her mileage (often doing run 5 minutes/walk 1 minute method) and wants to try the half tomorrow! Hopefully I'll check in soon with a picture of us both smiling with our medals together.
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