I've always loved watching the Hawaii Ironman competition and wondered what it must be like to push yourself mentally and physically to do something like that. Many times I've watched the annual show and been in awe of what these people are undertaking. With that in mind and since I keep hearing folks talking about triathlons, I decided to email one of the coaches training folks for the DC Triathlon (see DC Tri). To my surprise he emailed me within an hour and set up a time later in the day to "interview me."
During my interview I learned that the coaches are members of the Snapple Triathlon Team (see snapple tri team). Kinda cool. We discussed my experience and also talked about the program. The coach seemed pretty jazzed about my experience both running and swimming.
Apparently there are four levels of triathlons --- sprint, Olympic, half and full. I had always planned to aim for the sprint, but the coach was encouraging me to train for the Olympic distance given my experience running and swimming. SCARY! An Olympic distance consists of: 1.5 km open water swim, 45 km bike and a 10km run.
We decided that I would check them out before committing to the program.
Day 1 was a swim meet! Man...I haven't been to one of those in a heck of a long time. The smell of chlorine and the heat of an indoor pool bring back so many memories of waking up early for swim practice and religiously swimming laps before class when I was in college.
Unfortunately I only had a limited amount of time today so we agreed that I would stop by for introductions and swim the warm-up. I was actually really excited to get back into the pool. Unfortunately the pool at Catholic Univ is less than desirable. I had no idea anyone even built 25 meter pools anymore!
Though I was rusty, I forgot how much I enjoyed swimming. Granted, I ended up warming up with a couple of former collegiate swimmers (uh oh!), but I held my own (sort of) and they were very nice. If I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna have to build up my mileage.
It's highly likely that I'm actually gonna do this. Oh boy...this is gonna be an adventure.
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