Newbie Reality Check

You ran a mile? Excellent. I think October would be a great time for your first tri. Oftentimes, it's hard to hold onto a dream when you don't have an event coming up.

Right now, you should probably set up a plan, giving yourself time to ease back into an active lifestyle. There's nothing worse than an injury making you sit the bench.

Oh, and welcome to BT! This is a great place to learn and get encouragement!

I was in a situation similar to yours exactly one year ago. I was 38 years old and had been lifting weights for a couple of years. I had been doing some light, and I do mean LIGHT, cardio work on eliptical trainers and treadmills.

I was bored and looking for something to challenge me and decided to train for a sprint tri in something like 8 weeks. I could not run 2 miles without stopping. I had not swam a lap in 10+ years. I had only an ancient moutain bike to ride.

I used a training plan from a book and then found this site and sorta switched over to one of the free beginner training plans. I ended up having a great time at the race and got hooked.

Here is why you can do it:

• 10 weeks is enough time to prepare for a sprint. Check out one of the plans on this site.
• You have a huge advantage over many beginners by having a background in swimming. Not ever swimming a lap in their life is a huge hurdle for a lot of people.
• Your strength training will have helped your swimming. My swim stroke felt much better after lifting weights for a couple of years than it ever did when I swam in high school.
• You have already started! You got out and ran already. Do not stop.

Good luck and let us know how you are doing.

Bill

Sure, you can do it!  October sounds like a good goal date for your first tri.

For purposes of comparison, I did my first tri in June.  In March, I could barely swim a lap and hadn't been on my bike in a few years.

Welcome to the site! My $0.02 would be to use the logs. Trust me, it'll help to keep you motivated. Inspire others training logs and others will inspire your logs, and knowing that other people are checking your training logs will keep you on the ball.

Also, there's some great training plans here for all sorts of background with all sorts of goals (i.e. sprint, oly, HIM, IM). Definitely check those out and browse the site. There's tons of great articles and features here.

Best of luck!

Welcome to BT and congrats on your decision to better yourself!! You can definately do it, just be sure to follow a proper training schedule and don't forget to rest when you need to. You dont have to swim at a blazing speed, or do 25 MPH on your bike, or even run the entire final leg. I recently completed my first tri and am planning my next. I went from no history of exercise and 240lbs+ in February to 215lbs triathlete 2 weeks ago.

And you are crazy!! But thats ok, so are the rest of us. I think its a prerequisite to triathlons.

Congratulations on your first triathlon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Whoo hoo!!!!!!  This web site is motivational, ain't it?  Glad to hear you are hooked like the rest of us.  LOL!