So you may have seen some of Gaffa's blog post on his own personal blog: The Fat to Fit Journal. The reason behind this is that Gaffa and I decided about a month and a half ago together that we want to get fit. We've wanted this for a while as you've probably seen from our healthy cooking, our love for yoga and my raw/healthy baking, but now we've stepped it up a notch and are getting serious about it and making ourselves accountable. We've booked out belated Honeymoon for July so we're using that as our first milestone and focusing on the next 2 months.
Gaffa has started his own blog to keep track on what he's doing each day and also hoping to motivate his readers and to document all the ups and downs that someone might encounter when trying to get fit.
Last month I had my routine of the early shift at work and then going to the 5.30pm bikram yoga class. One week I made it through 5 straight days of yoga, (a first for me in a long long time) which I was hoping to get to 7 - but then on Thursday night at dinner at my folk's place, a spanner was thrown into the works. My brother, Rave asked me if I wanted to do a triathlon on the Saturday morning. He was training for the Port Macquarie Iron Man on 4th May and his triathlon group were running a short course and long course triathlon race, which they were doing as part of their training.
I asked what the distances were for each leg and these were the thoughts that went through my head.
>1km ocean swim - doable since I hadn't done much swimming in a while but managed to swim 1.2km the week before at Narrabeen ocean pool and felt pretty good afterwards.
>21km bike ride: I started riding my bike to work and the ride was about 11km each way. So 21km was like riding to work and back, in one go... doable since I was fairly comfortable with the distance now that I'd riden to work a few times already.
> 6km run: again, doable since I'd been doing 5km runs every now and then. And my Nike Free Runs were good for my feet up until about 7-8km when they start giving me blisters.
So in my head, since I could do each leg of the triathlon I thought, what's stopping me from doing them one after the other?
I decided to rest on Friday and get psyched up for the big morning. I was used to the early 5am wake up call so I made it to Malabar beach before the sun rose. Apparently I looked nervous before the race... haha yeh I was feeling it a bit. I knew I hadn't done any training for it and just told myself to have fun and try my best. But I didn't want to be that person, that quits. Marrying into the Bateman family means we never give up!!
I was the only person on a mountain bike and one of the few people wearing a swimming costume only - the pros were all wearing wetsuits. We set up our gear on the grass and I decided not to wear my knicks on the bike leg to save another wardrobe change after the bike ride.
We started the swim at about 7.20am and I decided to let the majority of the people swim ahead so I could pace myself and not get caught up in their whitewash. Out of the 3 legs I think swimming would be my strongest. But while I was swimming out and back into shore I didn't see many people (probably because I was at the back of the pack). I exited the water and looked back into the ocean to see who was left, I was nicely reassured that I wasn't the last one out :)
Feeling pretty good that I had 1 down and 2 to go, I changed out of my one piece (I was wearing a sports bra and bikini bottoms underneath) and put on my Lululemon 3/4 crops and a singlet. Stupid me didn't dry my legs properly and pulled a bit too hard on my crops and pulled some of the stitching apart, resulting in a hole on my left lower thigh. Annoyed, I got on my bike and started pedaling up the steepest hill. The cool breaze was nice and I was treating it like a pleasure ride down to La Perouse with the hubby. Riding down to Bare Island seemed a lot harder than I remember but I pedalled through and didn't get off my bike. Rave rode past me during the road down to the shipping yards which was good motivation to keep me pushing on. At the end of the ride I accidentally turned right up a hill instead of left to get back to the beach. Lucky I realised early and finally made it back.
2 down, 1 to go! After getting off my bike my backside wasn't feeling the pain yet - thankfully! My legs were a bit sore though. But I knew I was so close to the end and just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Rave rode past me during my first run lap and seemed in high spirits. And finally I made it past the finish line and completed my first triathlon!! Yaaay go me!
The guys who were runing the triathlon and helping out were great support and very motivating and positive throughout the race. One guy even yelled out "you're beating your brother", which made me laugh considering he was doing the long course triathlon. I was happy to see that he was still on his bike when I finished and just missed his transition to his run when I was putting my bike away in my car.
My final time: 2:12:56
Swim: 23:55
Bike: 1:08:59
Run: 40:03
Triathlons are fun. I'd definitely do one again, but would train for it! I spent the whole day after resting when the pain started to kick in. I don't think I'd ever get up to Ironman level, but you should never say never!! Watch this space.... hahaha.
Thanks STG for organising the event and for the photo.
