Ok, so I thought of doing this blog about Thursday or Friday of last week, so I want to document what I have done thus far for my training (week 1 of 12).

Last Saturday I mentioned that I had purchased the bike. I did a bike ride with my mom around the block near my parents house. Now when I say around the block, there is something that you must first understand. Most people will read that and say – big deal – a block is not very far. Well it can be far when you do not live in a city. I grew up in farm country of Eastern NY, so our “block” in it’s entirety, is approximately 12 miles round trip. Of course there are a couple of roads that intersect that area, so the trip could have been cut down, but it was just so great to be outside cycling on my new bike, which I must say, a road bike makes a WORLD of difference when it comes to the effort that actually has to be put forth to cover the longer distances…. I always had ridden mountain bikes in the past, and this was a whole new experience in bike riding – i loved it! Really, after seeing how easy it was to cover 12 miles, I decided that I would be able to do this sprint triathlon.

Monday morning I signed up for my triathlon. I am now officially committed to this race – especially since the entry fee was quite steep. During my lunch break on Monday, I started to research different 12 week training programs. After finding one that trained based on number of minutes put in per workout, I decided this would work best for me. Using the training schedule from http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/ I formed one that would work with my schedule. I have 2 rest days per week (Monday and Thursday since I play in a kickball and softball league on those nights). Then I have rotating workouts by day with double workouts on Saturdays or Sundays depending on what is going on during the weekend.

After work, I went for a run (even though Monday is supposed to be a night of rest…. but I wanted to just do a light workout before kickball). I told myself I would just fit in a 15 minute run and be done with it. Now this was my first run outside for the season, and I wasn’t really sure how it would go – but it was fantastic! I forced myself not to check my watch until I was at the furthest point from my house – and when I did, I saw I had already run 11 minutes without too much pain! It appears that my half-hearted effort that I put in at the gym for the past few months actually helped me – this time last year, I couldn’t even run 4 or 5 minutes without needing to take a rest! Well at that point I told myself just 4 more minutes and I could stop, but when I got to the 15 minute mark, I pushed myself further and found that I made it round-trip to my house without stopping to rest. This was fantastic & I felt great!

Maybe the triathlon thing will work out ok for me…