Welp. It’s official. I have lost ALL of my marbles. On June 1st, I registered for my very first triathlon. Not just a little sprint triathlon, or even an Olympic distance. I jumped in with both feet and registered for the Challenge Daytona Middle Distance. A middle distance, most commonly referred to as the branded half Ironman or 70.3 distance, is 1.2 miles swimming, 56 miles biking, and 13.1 miles running.
Why would I do such a thing? Well, I decided that I needed to get up off my tail and be active. I’ve spent the last three years mostly sitting and studying while I completed a graduate degree in nursing. During that time I semi-trained for and completed two half marathons, one in 2018 and one in 2019. My training consisted of running a couple times per week without a real plan or idea of what I was doing. My lack of commitment to the goal of running an entire half marathon was evident in how inconsistent I was with training. After the 2019 half marathon I decided I needed more motivation and a community to hold me accountable in my training. I joined Angela Naeth’s IRACELIKEAGIRL team in November, with the thought that I would run my first marathon and dip my toe into real endurance sports. I spent a few more months sitting and studying and then Covid hit. Like many things in life during this time of Covid, that plan of running a spring marathon just didn’t pan out.
The pandemic and related social isolation did one good thing for me, though- it brought me into closer contact with some of my IRLAG teammates. Through numerous zoom calls and extended group texts, I’ve found “my people” in the triathlon world. We’ll call them the Quarantinas! These five ladies, through a combination of peer pressure and encouragement, convinced me to sign up for Challenge Daytona. They, and many of my other teammates, will all be at the race in December. Some will be participating in the middle distance and some in the sprint.
After signing up for the race I decided to peruse the internet and find myself a free training plan that I could use to prepare for the big day. I used this same method when preparing for my half marathons, and while it did not prepare me like I needed it to, I felt like I could try again. But after much contemplation and discussion with the Quarantinas, I realized that the definition of crazy is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.
Enter the WonderCoach. I spoke to quite a few of my teammates about training plans vs hiring a coach, which coach they used, what they liked/disliked about their coach and coaching experience etc… One name came up pretty often, Coach Billy Sawyer. Billy is affiliated with IRLAG and works under Angela’s coaching platform. I have been working with him for just over one month now and I can already tell this was the absolute best decision I could have made! Billy is responsive any time I have questions (and since I’m new to this, that’s all the time). He also takes into account my work schedule and provides me with a week’s worth of workouts at a time. I told him when we first discussed me being coached that I like to know why I’m doing something, so he makes sure to include the purpose of each workout in the description.
It should be noted that I’m a “bigger girl”. I don’t look like people’s expectations when you say “triathlete.” Since childhood I’ve been on the upper side of overweight and with the more sedentary lifestyle I adopted while in my graduate program, I gained a considerable amount of weight. I’ll be honest, the hopes of losing some of that weight is one of my motivators for training for and completing this triathlon. My main goals though are to improve my overall health, to push myself outside of my comfort zone and to develop a constructive exercise habit.
With this series on GirlsGetGritty, I hope to show people what a person can accomplish with a little determination and hard work. I’ll be posting regularly about my experiences as I train and hope to introduce you to some of the key figures in this aspect of my life. I’ll also try to have a focus topic/theme for each week such as fueling, cross training, nutrition, menstruation, support networks, etc. I hope to bring you along on this journey to give you some laughter & some motivation and to encourage you to set your own goals and push through barriers to reach them.