Tri Prep 2

The triathlon training was good; "minimize" was the basic message.  You don't need the gels for a sprint triathlon; one or two swallows of water in your bottle are good enough; you don't need socks unless you're prone to blisters (I'll probably wear them just for running); and if you're super-tough and can withstand 64-degree water for ten minutes without a wetsuit, screw the wetsuit.  (I already know I'm not that tough.)

"Minimize" is a pretty good message for most other activities in life...I'm not the first person to say that, I realize...but it's amazing how effective you can become in a wide range of pursuits, using that approach.

Even when getting yourself through the race--don't think about the future ("how am I going to survive the run, I'm already destroyed halfway through the bike ride!" etc.), think about keeping your good form for the next 20 steps or 20 rotations of the wheel, or 20 strokes through the water.  Minimize your thoughts.

All good advice; that and actually experiencing the course made today's training event completely worthwhile for me.

We just practiced the transitions, the bike route and the running route; not the swimming.  Both the bike ride and the run happened along roads that skirted the bay, and a nice part of it, too.  Very scenic, for those not completely wrapped up in their breathing and hill-climbing agony (like me).  At one point on my bike, I turned a corner and a deer was standing stock still in the middle of the road, right in my path; luckily, I had time to slow down as it saw me and bounded away...it was a nice moment; but I shudder to think what could have happened if I had been barrelling along in one of the steeper downhill parts of the bike ride.

And that reinforces my believe that I'm not going to stick with this triathlon thing for years and years.  Two years at the most.  I think the odds are pretty good that if you're biking a lot, something nasty will happen sooner or later.  I don't mind taking risks, but I prefer ones where the odds are not heavily stacked against me.

So why am I doing this at all?  Frankly, it's a long-standing dream...I've always liked all three activities:  swimming, biking, running.  I'm not great at any of them; but I like them all.  So I wanted to do at least a one or two triathlons in my lifetime.  And at fifty, you start thinking, about a lot of things:  "If not now, when?"