Six Weeks and Counting Down

I'm not sure where the time went, but we are six weeks away from T-Day. It's rewarding to realize how much our activity has picked up speed since we started and also to realize the point we have reached in our training. I tallied my training miles the other day and came up with 200 biking miles, 5 swimming miles and 50 running miles since the beginning of April when I began to track.

For comparison, I said a few posts ago that the Danskin Triathlon is a sprint triathlon - the distances are 1/2 mile swim, 12 mile bike ride, 3.1 mile run. At the other end of the triathlon spectrum is the Ironman. Talk about people who must have lost their minds, these folks begin with a 2.4 mile swim, ride 112 miles and finish up by running a marathon. That's 26.2 miles. So you can see why when I learned a colleague was training for the Ironman I did not attempt to strike up a conversation about triathlons. I just walked quietly by.

So with six weeks to go, here's what my life and training has looked like. This week I've eaten an enormous amount of cookies (because I figure if I'm going to train hard I should be able to eat anything I want) I've run 3 times for a total of nine miles, biked once (~12 miles during which Brooke and I completely lost Laurie in the woods at Pt. Defiance, but saw lots of raccoons) and swum twice for one mile. One swim was in the pool and the second was in Lake Washington. I'll tell you about that later. The week began with Sunday as a rest day which actually incorporated a one and a half hour walk on the Soos Creek Trail with Vicki. You'll note in the photo that she's sporting a knee brace - it's an old injury from bull riding. She told me to write that. You'll have to ask her yourself.

On Monday I took a noon-time yoga class on campus which stretched everything out again. The training isn't all about exercise. On Tuesday night I attended a bike maintenance class. The class was free but I ended up buying a wonderfully compact set of tools, a fluorescent yellow riding vest so I can be seen on the roads and some "aren't-I-way-cool" bike gloves. The guy teaching the class took a look at my bike afterwards, juggled gears and brakes, and guess what? the next night I couldn't shift from third down to second. So it's back to the repair shop today.

Stay tuned. There's more adventure to come.