Training Begins

Team orientation was on Saturday November 12^th at Suffolk Community College.  As is par for the course, I got lost and showed up fairly late.  I once got lost on an airplane.  True story.  But I digress.  I walked into a room of about 20 people all of whom are doing various events.  I saw some familiar faces in the folks from my team I had met at the kickoff party two nights prior.  I listened to the head coach, Steve, talk about triathlon training, the schedule, nutrition and most importantly having fun.  He described triathlon as being a kid.  In the summertime, you ride your bike, go swimming and run around with your friends only we do it one right after the other.  We went around the room introducing ourselves and I learned that one girl joined the team after she lost her father to leukemia.  A man, Doug, said when his daughter was 3 she was diagnosed with the same type of leukemia as Aubri and now she’s a healthy and happy 12 year old.  It gives me a lot of hope.

We met the rest of the coaches all with varying degrees of experience.  They’ve all been involved in triathlon for many, many years and one woman has actually completed the Kona Ironman 4 times!  I almost want to do that.  Almost.  They gave us our training schedule and explained that there is an “enhanced” schedule for those of us who want to improve overall.  Yup, that’s the one I picked.  6 days instead of 5.  Saturday morning spin classes at 7am.  Extra swim on Fridays.  More time outside of my comfort zone.  My muscles got sore reading it but that’s what I signed up for.

Then we went for a short run around campus, roughly 30 minutes.  It was extremely windy but we forged ahead.  We’re all over the place as far as ability.  I was in the middle of the crowd and some of those who took off ahead of me ended up behind.  I got a chance to catch up with two of the coaches after the run and got some advice on avoiding shin splints and training times.

Sunday started my first day of training on a schedule without the coaches.  It called for a run/walk for 15-30 minutes so I went for a run on the boardwalk.  Well, I spent as much time as I could on the boardwalk since it was another really windy day.  I had sand whipping at my face and ended up chewing on it.  As much as I don’t like running on concrete I took to the side streets and finished up there.  Overall, here are the results:

2.56 Miles
33:08 Minutes
Calories 299
Calories from fat 16%

I have my heart rate monitor but am still learning about zones so I’ll be tracking those eventually too.  I’m happy to be at a point where I run more than walk but there is much room for improvement.  Coach Steve already offered to help me figure it out and I just have to get out there and do it.  And stay off the stupid treadmill.  It ruins my stride and doesn’t mimic regular running closely enough.

Mondays will be my only day off once the enhanced schedule kicks in.  I’m going to talk to the coaches about doing weight training and see what they recommend but they did stress two things: swimming is extremely important and so is a day off.  Mental note: do nothing on Monday.  Got it.  I actually need to practice doing nothing.

And so it begins.  I have a training schedule, several coaches, a bike, running shoes and only have to join the recreation center so I can practice in the pool there.  I’ve learned new terms, like “resistance bucket” for swim training.  I have a feeling I’m about to find out just how much I bit off!