Gettin' Real Up In Here

I have been talking the big talk of late, putting it out there that I want to do a triathlon in 2013. I've been improving my running, working on my swimming, and hoping to soon buy a bike.

This weekend, I bought a book, First Triathlon: Your Perfect Plan to Success. I sat on the floor in the sports section of Barnes and Noble, perusing the books about triathlon, feeling like a badass because yo, look at me! I'm totally going to do a tri!

As I flipped through the book, I found it had some valuable information about equipment, training plans, and all that good stuff. Another book in the same series was all about swimming, which I feel will be my weakest event, confidence-wise. I flipped through that, to find a whole chapter on sharks.

Sharks!

Turns out some triathlons have ocean swims. This is so far beyond me, I start to shake and dribble a bit just imagining it. I love the ocean--look back in this blog and you know that I need regular ocean fixes to stay sane--but I do not swim in it. No.

The good news is that most tris, especially the local-ish ones I'd be looking into, have the swim in lakes, rivers or reservoirs. I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to get over my fear of open water swimming, so it's nice to know there are also pool swim triathlons (why give myself a panic attack in the first leg of a long event, right?).

Back to my original point, which is not about sharks, but about this general feeling of being overwhelmed. I have so much to learn, and I feel like I'm setting this really lofty goal. Most days, I shrug and say, "Yeah, I can do this!" but I also have days where I wonder if this is possible. I have to constantly remind myself that I am no longer that woman who watches from the sidelines as other people kick butt and take names. It is still hard to believe, sometimes, that I am not "almost in shape," I'm really, truly, in great shape. I have a pretty high level of fitness, considering where I started three-and-a-half years ago.

This weekend I put together a new set of strength training workouts to do over the next four weeks. They include Burpees, chest presses, rows, various squats and lunges, and some pretty difficult exercises that require both weight-bearing and balance at the same time. This isn't stuff I did with B. the Sadist, it's stuff I only started being able to do with G. the Meanie and then M. the Reasonable. I can certainly train for a triathlon (M. would never have suggested it if he didn't think it was possible, and he hasn't been wrong to believe in me yet!).

Expect a lot of blog posts like this as I get deeper into training for an mentally preparing for a triathlon (and cross your fingers I get the job I interviewed for last week so I can finally buy a bike!!). My confidence looks like a roller coaster--it's up, it's down, it loop-de-loops.

All I know is, I gotta tri.