Sorry for the blogging hiatus — I dashed off on holidays at the end of June, and I’m slowly returning to the office. Lucky for you, Chatelaine’s assistant style editor, Kate Daley, has an update on her training.
Kate vowed to complete a triathlon this summer, and she’s been blogging about her progress, here on Healthwise. The triathlon is this weekend! Go Kate!
The countdown is on and, from here on in, it’s all a mental game. The Joe’s Team Triathlon is in two days.
I’m starting to get really nervous. The weather forecast says thunderstorms. I pulled a muscle in a spinning class. And I’m starting to freak out about every little bit of the race, which is making it hard to sleep.
But I’ve been training for months, and this week I am forcing myself to relax, even though all I want to do is run until I stop feeling stressed out about it. I’ve prepared myself to be cold, wet and hungry. In the past few months, every time I’ve felt sick or tired, I’ve forced myself to go for a workout so that if that happened on race day, I would be prepared. A little spastic? Maybe, but I’m hoping it will help me.
In terms of gear, I realized that it’s really important. I thought I’d be able to get away with wearing an old swim-team bathing suit and borrowing a bike, but now I know that inadequate equipment can really affect your performance. So I invested in a new road bike (a middle-range one), and I bought toe clips and bike shoes. Initially, I was scared of clipping in while riding –- friends told me horror stories of falling on their faces in traffic because they couldn’t pull their feet out. The best advice came from a friend’s bike-pro brother, which he typed out in capital letters: PRACTICE ON GRASS!
But I went for my first ride on a rainy Sunday and biked about 20 km. I also bought tri shorts and a sports bra I could swim in, because a one-piece bathing suit would be a transition disaster.
Here are the distances:
Swim: 750 m
Bike: 20 km
Run: 5 kmAlone, they aren’t that big of a deal, as everyone keeps reminding me.
But together, with transitions and gear and not being able to stop for a snack for two hours or longer, they are much more intimidating.
This week, my marathon-running friend Merryn gave me these much-needed words of encouragement: “It’ll hurt, but if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be such an awesome accomplishment, and everyone would be doing it! Try to enjoy some of the race, even when it hurts. You may never do this again.” And she’s right!
I’m not a natural athlete — ask my high-school hockey coach — but that’s what stops so many people from trying new sports. So I’m not going to let anxiety stop me; this race is supposed to be really fun. Besides, everyone is there for Joe Finley and The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation. So really, it’s not about me at all, and I need to remember that.
If you’d like to support my efforts, as well as Joe’s Team and The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, check out my triathlon website. And wish me luck!
– Kate Daley
