Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Duathlon.

Without ever consciously deciding to set New Year's Resolutions, a couple of months ago, I found myself just a little bit too large around the middle, and for the first time I actually cared.
With some gentle prods from home (The Wife) and work (Gareth, The super-fit Project Manager who just did a half-iron man!) I joined a gym and at around the same time, I caught up with my mate Jules who told me he was training for a duathlon in March.
Buoyed with a new-found lust for life (and a couple of Steinlager Pure's) I heard myself saying 'ooh I'll do that - it'll be a larf'.

So now I'm a couple of weeks away from actually competing and starting to wonder what I've let myself in for... The 'open' age group is 17-39 and I was tempted to enter the 'vets' and pass myself off as 40...

The event itself is a 'short course'. My perspective on short distances with regards to running/cycling is rapidly changing, but 4km run + 12km cycle + 2km run doesn't SEEM short to me...
Incidentally, I'm not doing the 400m swim on account of how I do not wish to drown.

Training is going OK-ish (although I have no frame of reference...) although I feel I should be doing more *real* running/cycling. I keep finding good excuses for staying in the gym: I can set the pace on the treadmill; I can stay out the sun (pasty-white-Englishman-Syndrome); it's too hilly round where I live... but with only a couple of weeks to go, I guess I'm going to have to harden up and put a couple of training runs in before the real event creeps up on me!
Maybe I'll slap some sunny on tomorrow and see if Gareth wants a gentle trot round Takapuna lake...

2 comments:

  1. Haha, nice post Ian.

    Sounds like a Damn Interesting thing.

    To read. :)

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  2. Hey Ian, you should pop over to the Takapuna Beach Series tomorrow night. 5k Run on the beach starting at 6pm. First one is free if you can find one of those little flyers.

    http://www.beachseries.co.nz/

    No need to run too fast, and it's a good training run with lots of people on a nice flat course. On your way home as well. ;-)

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