Iron Man Triathlon

Every year Texas Tech puts on an Iron Man Triathlon that allows students to take 2 weeks to complete what some crazy people do in one sitting....granted a long more active sitting, but still all at one time...CRAZY! The past 2 years I've wanted to do it, but always forgot about the registration or really didn't have the physical motivation to do it. This year, though, is different. The last day to sign up I paid my money, told them my t-shirt size, and got the little paper to keep the "oh so official" track of how far I go in each activity each day. At the end of the two weeks I'll turn the paper back in to get my t-shirt if I finished everything.

For those who don't know what all a triathlon entails, let me enlighten you. (Don't worry, I didn't know either until they handed me the paper.) It is 112 miles of biking, 26.2 miles of running and 2.4 miles of swimming. The first day I went in with the aspiration of getting 5 miles of running out of the way. Then I remembered after about a mile how much I hate running. It somewhat has to do with how over the Christmas break my family pointed out that I run wrong. Yep, it's possible. I'm not sure how I missed the "running" lesson in elementary school, but I must have been sick that day, so now after 27 years of life, I realized it's a little hard to try and change how you run. Needless to say I didn't make my 5 mile goal. After going back and forth of trying to just get distance out of the way running my way and then trying to really fix how I run, I was frustrated and decided 3.2 miles was great for the day. At least I got that little .2 miles out of the way, so now my distances will be more even numbers. All that to say Day 1 of the Iron Man was more discouraging than anything.

Well Day 2 of getting distances done went WAY better! It's amazing how when you are doing something with a friend by your side, it is just more fun and seems to go a lot faster. I finally got to spend one on one time with a girl on my staff team for the first time this entire semester, so walking 2.5 miles seems to be a breeze when you both have a billion things to talk about. Then I was amazed at how fast miles go when you are on a bike. I mean, want encouragement by watching the mile marker go up and up in a short time? Get yourself on a bike. I'm not sure how great the exercise really is, but you'll feel like you conquered the world. I really wanted to get under 100 miles left to go, so I went a convenient 13 miles. Then I couldn't leave my running to having done 5.7 miles total since that .7 would drive me nuts, so I finished up another .5. I'm sensing a pattern here with how my record keeping desires. So day 2 a success and a renewed sense of how I really can finish this thing in the allotted 2 weeks.

I won't write about every day's adventures as that would get really boring, but here is your little intro to the newest goal I've set. I didn't have any for this year yet, so this is the one. You can keep track of how much I've done to the right and I'll make sure to post a pic of the shirt when I get it at the end of the two weeks. Iron Man, I will conquer you and get that shirt without fudging my numbers at the end!!!