my first sprint tri -- am I crazy?

Sounds to me like you will be just fine, good luck on your race!

You'll cruise it - just don't overexert your legs on the swim, save them for the bike and the run and you'll be amazed at how easy you'll find it!! Go for it!!

Thanks for the encouragement!

I was thinking about renting a wetsuit even though the "lake" (actually it's an emergency fire water pond for a former nuclear power plant) is shallow and warm. I don't kick at all during my swim practice now because I'm not convinced it helps me. But I learned I'm faster when I wear fins (and still don't kick), which led me to believe that my legs are dragging too much. I think I would benefit from the added buoyancy from the wetsuit.

I think, just to make myself feel a little better, I'm going to work on my cycling a bit and forget about the swim and run except to just keep doing it.

Another smaller concern is that the whole week of May 16-23 I'll be on a Carribbean cruise (I know, life's hard). I'll have an on-board running track, but I'm not sure how I'll feel about running. Then, when I'm back, I'll have two weeks before the tri (June 5). During that time, I'll focus on the bike, again, and add in a small run right after each ride just to get sorta used to that transition. And I'm scheduling all my workouts during the heat of the day so I can maybe get a bit more acclimated to the heat (Central Valley California is much hotter than Sonoma County, even).

I think when I'm back from my trip, the local swimming pond will be open and I might head over a couple of times to practice "open" water swimming. It's not exactly the same, but it's bigger than the pool.

No not crazy Karen (at least nomore crazy than the rest of us who love tri) - one suggestion. The three distances can be very manageable - but when you put them together it can be a bit of a body shock - so my suggestion is to do some serious brick workouts. Even work in a swim, bike, run with transitions if you can swing it. Do it!

Thanks, Malvey. That's the plan for when I'm back from vacation: bike immediately followed by a short run. My swim class at the JC will be over then, so I'll have to figure out another place to swim and see whether I can bike there and back to simulate the swim-to-bike transistion. Maybe I'll take my mountain bike to the swim pond and do them both there. Of course, I could just as easily do all there there too!

Karen! Welcome!!

We love crazy here! (o:

I'm your southern neighbor and glad to have another west coastie on board! Also thanks for your commiseration of my Wildflower event! I'm still sweating!!

BTW, a few of us are training for the 1/2 Vineman that's in August--and if you ever want to join us for a bike ride, we'd love to have you! Just let me know and we'll keep you in the loop.

They are long distances, but they can be tailored to your biking needs, and we are actually relatively slow (compared to many others). We'll also be doing some open water swims and the like. Love to have you join us.

Dana

Hey MADKAT!
If I'm doing the Oly on the 6th you are SO DOING THE SPRINT ON THE 5TH! (and it's partly Eric's fault I am! )
I'll be there with *my* pink pompomns!

You can so do it!

Dana, MadKat and her BF are locals (Santa Rosa) who have given me tons of encouragement on my Tri quest....all of us have gots to get together for a ride pretty darn quick!

Go Karen, Go!





Edited by crpadiem 2004-05-06 10:49 PM