From dream to reality?
Ok, so everyone already knows that my goal for next season is to start doing Olympic distance triathlons. But what steps am I taking to achieve that goal? Sure, I can swim 1500 meters and I can bike 40 km and I can run 10 km, but can I do all of them one after another? I believe that I can do the first two without a problem, but running has always been my limiter, even at the sprint distance. So I've decided to take action.
My coach once said that to do an Oly distance tri well, you have to be able to run 20 km -- twice the distance that you need to run in the race. So that got my wheels spinning. 20 km... For the last two years, I've done the 10k at the Ein Gedi 10k and Half Marathon, so suddenly I started thinking, what if I did the half marathon instead? At first, it was just a passing thought. Then, I mentioned it on one of my mailing lists -- just that I was kind of thinking about it, not that I was seriously considering it. Then I bit the bullet and asked my coach if he thought I could do it. I was hoping he'd say, "Not this year -- you don't have enough time to train." Nope. He said, "Yeah, sure you can!"
So next thing I knew, I was training for a half marathon. And I'm not just training -- I've told almost everyone I know what my plan is and I'm even on the verge of convincing a friend to do it with me (I think he's going to come around in the next few days). So I'm really doing this. If all goes as planned, I'm going to run a half marathon. Me. Wow. An Oly distance tri should be a piece of cake after that!
And to end this, a mini race report: I ran the Lehavim 10k last weekend. Since I hadn't run 10 km in quite some time, I just did it as a training run. There was lots of wind and we had to run up one of my least favorite hills twice. But I ran the whole way -- a slow run that allowed me to actually hold conversations with people without a lot of panting. In fact, a friend rode his bike next to me for the last couple of kilometers and we talked the whole way (this is the same friend who is going to do that half marathon with me if I have it my way). And I finished 12 seconds faster than the time I had declared I was going to do. My prediction had been 1:05 and my time was 1:04:48. Pretty damn close (and pretty damn slow, but that's ok).
Here I am finishing up with a big smile on my face (I think I was smiling because I loved the way the announcer was encouraging people as they reached the finish line). You can't see much of it in this picture, but this is my town -- that finishing line is about 1 km from my house. It was a lot of fun to run a race with my friends and neighbors cheering me on!
My coach once said that to do an Oly distance tri well, you have to be able to run 20 km -- twice the distance that you need to run in the race. So that got my wheels spinning. 20 km... For the last two years, I've done the 10k at the Ein Gedi 10k and Half Marathon, so suddenly I started thinking, what if I did the half marathon instead? At first, it was just a passing thought. Then, I mentioned it on one of my mailing lists -- just that I was kind of thinking about it, not that I was seriously considering it. Then I bit the bullet and asked my coach if he thought I could do it. I was hoping he'd say, "Not this year -- you don't have enough time to train." Nope. He said, "Yeah, sure you can!"
So next thing I knew, I was training for a half marathon. And I'm not just training -- I've told almost everyone I know what my plan is and I'm even on the verge of convincing a friend to do it with me (I think he's going to come around in the next few days). So I'm really doing this. If all goes as planned, I'm going to run a half marathon. Me. Wow. An Oly distance tri should be a piece of cake after that!
And to end this, a mini race report: I ran the Lehavim 10k last weekend. Since I hadn't run 10 km in quite some time, I just did it as a training run. There was lots of wind and we had to run up one of my least favorite hills twice. But I ran the whole way -- a slow run that allowed me to actually hold conversations with people without a lot of panting. In fact, a friend rode his bike next to me for the last couple of kilometers and we talked the whole way (this is the same friend who is going to do that half marathon with me if I have it my way). And I finished 12 seconds faster than the time I had declared I was going to do. My prediction had been 1:05 and my time was 1:04:48. Pretty damn close (and pretty damn slow, but that's ok).
Here I am finishing up with a big smile on my face (I think I was smiling because I loved the way the announcer was encouraging people as they reached the finish line). You can't see much of it in this picture, but this is my town -- that finishing line is about 1 km from my house. It was a lot of fun to run a race with my friends and neighbors cheering me on!
posted by bari | 15:42
2 Comments:
good job with the 10k. and good luck with the training for the half marathon and the oly.
try doing some runs off the bike in your training. that should help your run feel a little better on race day.
Congrats and good luck to you on the half marathon, I bet you'll do great (from another triathlete who is not much of a runner). Your hometown looks very pretty, especially viewed from the rainy, cold, US Northwest right now!
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