Subject: Keep building base or race First, I know I don't have much base to begin with, last week being the first tme I hit 30km/wk. Second, upon the unanimous advice of people here, I'm in the process of building my base to somewhere around 40 miles/wk with the hope of completing a first HM and enabling me to work on speed in the shorter 5/10km distances. As of now, I still feel very slow - I'm not sure I can break a 30min 5k. The above being said, there is a local sprint tri on Dec 11 (900m/32km/6km ). Should I join or do I wait for another, an open water (a first for me ) sprint tri on January 23 when I am closer to my base mileage goals? Or wait even longer when I've progressed to doing speed training. I suppose my frustration is that I now run day in day out, when am I gonna be able to be able to "showcase" what I've been working on (which is not to say I have much if any to showcase )? I don't really know what to do as I am new to all of this and I've been doing this on my own - none of my friends and family share this new-found interest. To clarify my question: should I wait until I complete my base building phase and speed training phase before I join a race? If not, what's a good plan for me? My logs are up to date, if you care to look. I swim 2-3x per week @ 3000m each, m/s being 10-12x100m leaving on 1:55. Bike 2-3x per week, 20km each exclusively on a trainer. Run 5x/week now at 30km/week. Run is my real achilles. Ron |