Triathlon
So as all of my mates know I’ve always been a keen runner…actually, no wait, that’s complete and utter bovine manure. I shall rephrase that. Since finishing school and moving to Brisbane way back in 1999 I have been a keen runner. I can remember dreading the school cross countries and never liking them. It always felt unnatural back then for me to run. I would usually attempt to run about the first kilometre then I’d eventually end up walking the next 5km and talking to one of my school mates. Essentially cross country was more of a social activity than a form of exercise.
Skip forward to the present day and I’ll happily run 10 to 12km and I love it. I’ve got my Nike+ Sports Kit to hook up to my iPod Nano, a Belkin arm band so I can strap my iPod onto my arm and run without a worry in the world. I especially love it when I’m running and I take off my shirt and have people in cars beeping at me. I’m a pretty skinny and lanky bloke so perhaps they are beeping because they enjoy the novelty of driving past a stick insect of a man who is busting his balls to run as fast as he can? I’m pretty good at running. I’m not in any way an elite runner, I’m more of an intermediate runner who gets thrills out of listening to workout tracks, zoning out and channelling any stress or general frustration through sweat and heaving breathing. (Unlike the other forms of heavy breathing I do when I’m outside hiding in the bushes in a voyeuristic kind of way. P.S. I know where you live!).
One of my mates is really into riding, both motorbikes and mountain bikes. He’s never understand why I run or why I do it. I’ve never really given mountain biking a good go. So after chatting on Windows Live Messenger (yeah, that’s right, I didn’t call it MSN bitches!) Grant and I came up with this crazy idea that we should start training to go in some mini triathlons. I’ve never been a good swimming (read: Good god, throw the man an object that floats so he can stay alive) and Grant hasn’t been much of a swimming (read: He surfs a fair bit).
Grant and I have been driving down to the Gold Coast on Saturdays to swim and run on the beach and I must say it makes a gorgeous start to the weekend. It’s definitely much better than heading out after work on a Friday night and having too many beers and waking up with a faint hangover and no energy.
The mini triathlon we are working up to is a 350 metre swim, a 10km bike ride and a 4km run. We were aiming to go in the first one on the 25th of this month but I’m not strong enough in the swimming and riding yet. I want to be able to do all of the legs without having to stop. The other interesting part about it is that it’s all off road so it adds a different challenge to it.
So stay tuned for future updates about the training. It’s bound to come with plenty of stacks on bikes with photos and a potential drowning or two. What more could a blog need?
