Still at Sea

Ahoy!

It's June and I'm still at tri-sea! Thought it was time to hoist up the blog sail and report on the conditions.  Okay, that's about all of the maritime metaphor I have in me . . .

I'm in the throws of training for my first half-ironman triathlon this July 31st, Barb's Race.  It's part of the Vineman Ironman series up on the Russian River.  This will be, by far, the hardest endurance event I've trained for.  Twice as long as any previous tris.  Egads!  1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, 13.1 mile run.

[BTW: The race is a fundraising event for local cancer charities.  Half of our race fees goes towards that. In addition, I'm trying to raise an additional $750 to help them out.  If you can spare a bit, please would you consider helping me out?  http://www.active.com/donate/vineman10/mcheungsf ]

I'm training for this with a group of friends, which has been super fun, but takes a lot more discipline than with a team.  No one to tell you what the workouts are, no coaches to encourage you along the way.  And no one plans out the details of each training session.  Last weekend, we went to Guerneville to ride the actual course, which is a point to point ride, which means you don't end where you start.  In fact, it means you end 20 miles from where you start.  And it really means when it's 96 degrees and you've ridden 56 miles, you don't want to ride back to your car, so you plot various ways of hitch-hiking, off-roading across the river, and teleporting your way back to your car for the last 10 miles of your ride.  Turns out you really can fit 4 bikes and 4 sweaty women into a small car.  Who knew.  [pics of our post ride snack.  no pics of the ride it self.  priorities, priorities!]

Anyhow, we are at the 6-weeks-to-the-race mark, which is a legitimate time to start to panic, in my opinion.  I started training back in March, with lofty goals such as finishing in under 7 hours and running the entire run at solid a pace. This has since been downgraded to two somewhat realistic and possibly achieveable goals:

1) Do not cry in the first 5 hours of the race.  Crying is fully sanctioned, and perhaps even encouraged from hours 5-8+

2) Have one good race photo, one that does not involve me looking like I'm about to die, curse, or fall over.  And one where I actually look like I am running.

I guess the 3rd, but unspoken goal would be to finish the race.  And maybe the 4th would be to not have to visit the med tent afterwards.  But that might be getting a bit cocky again!


Until next time. . .