Never 2  Old 2 Tri

The Deed is Done!

My inbox proudly reports....

Congratulations! You are now registered for the 2012 Ironman 70.3 Vineman

"The Ironman 70.3 Vineman Triathlon (formerly the Half Vineman Triathlon) consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run triathlon and is a qualifier for the Marines Ironman World Championship 70.3 at Lake Las Vegas in Henderson, NV. This event has become one of the most popular and highly competitive triathlons in the world."

One of the most popular & highly competitive in the WORLD? What have I done? Why am I doing this?

"The Ironman 70.3 VinemanTriathlon is held in Sonoma County, California (about one hour north of San Francisco). The point-to-point event begins at Johnson's Beach in Guerneville and takes entrants past hundreds of vineyards and dozens of wineries before it finishes up at Windsor High School in Windsor. The course is a tour of Sonoma County's beautiful wine country, passing through four different grape growing regions: the Russian River Region, the Dry Creek Valley, the Alexander Valley, and Chalk Hill."

That must be it! I thought I was registering for a tour of wine country. I guess in sense I did. I wonder if the transition area includes wine tasting?

Seriously, The event sold out in less than 3 hours. Why do I find that almost as intimidating as the race distance itself?

A simple email confirmation. A very cool challenge!

"DO NOT RESIST CHANCES. Take them like vitamins. Let go of the brakes. See what happens if you go five more miles. Footbridges be damned, find your own way across. Don't worry about the bumps and bruises. Your body can take them. Don't steer around the bits that scare you, go over them, go through them. Do something the guys in the bowling league would be terrified of. You feel your chin rise up from your chest, and you'll be able to see what's around you. What's ahead of you. And there will be one less thing you cannot do. JUST DO IT. -September 1995"

Republished from Feb 2010 for my blogger friend SwimBikeMom as she goes into her first 70.3 this weekend. You Go Girl!

Do or Do Not. There is no Try!

Too often we are scared. 

Scared of what we might not be able to do. 

Scared of what people might think if we tried. 

We let our fears stand in the way of our hopes. We say no when we want to say yes. We sit quietly when we want to scream. And we shout with the others, when we should keep our mouths shut.  

Why? 

After all,we do only go around once. There's really no time to be afraid. 

So stop. 

Try something you've never tried. 

Risk it. 

Enter a triathlon. 

Write a letter to the editor. Demand a raise.  Throw away your television. Bicycle across the United States. Try bobsledding. Try anything. Speak out against the designated hitter. Travel to a country where you don't speak the language. Patent something. 

You have nothing to lose and everything everything everything to gain. JUST DO IT. 

-- Barry Sanders running backit Lion

Turned out I was pretty tired last night and called it a day at 7:30pm. Figured even if I didn’t sleep, just kickin’ back and relaxing would be good. I was asleep, as they say, before my head hit the pillow.

I did however wake up at midnight, get up, work for a couple hours, and then go back to sleep.

I arrived, without incident, an hour before the start to set up in transition. 

Oh, except for the fact I had packed 2 LEFT shoes to run in.

Luckily, I caught that one before I left the house.

The swim was uneventful. My sighting seemed better than yesterday and since I only had to swim a 1/2mile, it really was an opportunity to just shake off the stiffness I was feeling.

I don’t know my splits yet, so my opinion may change, but I think I had a strong swim.

In my personal opinion T1 was “icky”.

Had to walk/run thru gravel from the swim exit to my bike. took extra time to get all the gravel off feet to avoid blisters in the bike shoes. Then we had to walk our bikes out off the “gravel pit” transition area

The bike, which I had been concerned about since it was 6 loops on the same course, turned out to be pretty fun.

No, not the big hill we had to ride up 6 times.

There was a nice 1/2 mile or so stretch were I got to tri out the new aero bars. They worked great and my shoulders really needed the break. The downhill piece was really exciting. 

On the first lap, I seemed to ride the downhill more aggressively than the rest of my fellow ‘back of the packers”. 

Unfortunately the “front of the packers” were on their.....

I have no idea....3rd, 4th, 5th loop.

But here we are, I’m trying to pass a guy riding his brakes doing about 18mph down this extreme hill, and suddenly the lead group of men catch us. Thankfully, they’re screaming at the top of their lungs “ON YOUR LEFT” “ON YOUR LEFT”

I quickly realize it is not as important to pass the guy in front of me as it is to let this guys blow by at 35+mph.

Fun thing is on the next 5 loops the crowds have dispersed a little and I get to enjoy some speed. On a couple laps I even broke 35mph.

I really pushed on the bike felt I had given it my all when it was over.

T2 was another adventure. Skidding down the path back into the gravel pit on rubber legs. I tried to stand and switch into my running shoes, but kept losing my balance and spending time wiping more gravel off my feet before applying my shoes.

Finally I gave up and just sat down. 

The “Run” and we’ll use that word loosely here, started with a climb out of said pit. I could not for the life me get my legs moving.

I opted to racewalk until I caught my breath and recovered from the bike. It never seemed to happen. I ran the downhills and racewalked the rest.

Oddly, I was not disappointed as I felt the swim and bike had gone so well and I had pushed my limits.