Mini Triathlon Anyone?

A few weeks ago I attended a party, of which most guests I had never met before. Imagine my delight after a full week of juice fasting, to realise I had walked straight into a gathering of accomplished Iron Men and Fitness Freaks. The meeting was to celebrate a few of the gang’s Ironman success a few weeks earlier at the competition in Austria. After politely refusing a slice of delicious looking chocolate cake from the host’s very enviously athletic wife, I set about chatting with some of the guests and found myself being roped into a ‘beginner’s triathlon’. My excuse was not having the right bike.

“Oh no, that is not a problem”, one of the ‘Ironmen’ and obvious triathlon recruiters said. “We can arrange that within the group."

“Ok then, what are the distances?” I came back with.

“500m swim, 20km bike, 5km run.”

Hmmm I thought about it for a brief moment. 500m I can do (slowly and with a stop every few laps for a chin wag with C at the pool). 20km bike (pushing it, but can’t be too hard coming from a previous Spin class addict). 5km run (I’ve done a 10km and 12km fun runs before but that was a few years back...the extent of my running now is a slow jog on the treadmill every so often from anywhere from 5mins to an hour).

C and I often joke about some training days we have where we become “accidental” triathletes. We cycle to the gym (10mins away), we do a workout and maybe a run on the treadmill, and then a few laps in the pool. Surely this triathlon thing couldn’t be that hard. Given all my ‘perfect conditioning’ (NOT) I thought fantastic, if I trained properly, I think I could be in shape for this in about six months.

“So when is the big day?” I queried.

“November 20^th.”

Gulp

Oh crap....maybe I could start training for it and see how I go. Really not convinced my ego could handle the fallout when I collapse straight after the swim or trip over my bike to start the run. Despite all this, my boyfriend is adamant he needs another hobby to collect and is seriously thinking about it. In the meantime I might just start training with him.