I took part in my 2nd Biathlon last Sunday. How can I put this subtly across......... In the words of Homer Simpson...WOOHOO!!!!
After training for less than 2 months, I completed the Biathlon! And what a tough one it is!! First and foremost, I need to thank Vincent for the motivation he provided throughout the run. Vince, if not for you, I would definitelynot be able to finish in the time that I did - probably would have added another 15-20 minutes. Thanks man!!
Well, coming back. I knew that when I signed up for this, I was gonna be in for a whole lot of suffering. I had started training for the swim in early January and only started running in late Jan. Plus throw in the numerous mini emergencies every young parent faces every other day, I was looking at some really erratic training schedule.
This means swim/run when you can, not when you planned.
Well, the BIG day dawned.... I got ready..... And when I got to East Coast, I realized I left my 3-litre can of ice-cold Gatorade at home. Great, I thought. This is going really well.
Somehow, I got all the registration and other stuff done smoothly and next thing I know, I was with a whole bunch of bodies getting ready to hit the water. Actually, the water hit me. My toes cramped up in the 10 seconds that I was in the water. You can imagine my panic that I wasn't even going to finish the swim! Thank goodness the cramp went off on its own after a while.
This year's swim was really good because they layed out the entire course with lanes, so it was just a matter of swimming parallel to the lane - no veering off course. For some reason, there was this Caucasian that kept cutting across my path. We weren't exactly with a crowd of swimmers - in fact, we were leading the pack. And this is after all the sea - we do have quite a bit of room you know. Hope he wasn't getting off just swmming real close...... Sorry, I digress. Anyway, manage to complete the swim without further incident. Think I did a pretty respectable time of 30min - plus or minus.
Then came the dreaded run. To tell you the truth, I was in no shape to do 10km. Up to that day, the longest run I did was maybe about 6km - and that's pushing it a bit. I know some of you out there wouldn't even break sweat running 6km but we're talking about me here. Big old 85kg, flabby, out-of-traning-for-a-year me. I gotta admit, thoughts of giving up were floating around my head when I hit the 5km mark. Around that time, I saw Ironmandreamer literally flew past me. "Hmmm", I thought,"How encouraging. Now if only I could borrow a bike....." I killed that thought 2km later. Might as well finish it with only 3km left. And I did. Like I said earlier, without Vincent's help, I might have just given up. Thanks pal!! :-D
That's it. My long and short of Biathlon 2007. I'll be launching my come back this year so you can look forward to more blogs from me on the races that I'm gonna take part in. I'll make sure I train up for them this time round. Until then, adios amigos! (Hope I got that right...)
After training for less than 2 months, I completed the Biathlon! And what a tough one it is!! First and foremost, I need to thank Vincent for the motivation he provided throughout the run. Vince, if not for you, I would definitelynot be able to finish in the time that I did - probably would have added another 15-20 minutes. Thanks man!!
Well, coming back. I knew that when I signed up for this, I was gonna be in for a whole lot of suffering. I had started training for the swim in early January and only started running in late Jan. Plus throw in the numerous mini emergencies every young parent faces every other day, I was looking at some really erratic training schedule.
This means swim/run when you can, not when you planned.
Well, the BIG day dawned.... I got ready..... And when I got to East Coast, I realized I left my 3-litre can of ice-cold Gatorade at home. Great, I thought. This is going really well.
Somehow, I got all the registration and other stuff done smoothly and next thing I know, I was with a whole bunch of bodies getting ready to hit the water. Actually, the water hit me. My toes cramped up in the 10 seconds that I was in the water. You can imagine my panic that I wasn't even going to finish the swim! Thank goodness the cramp went off on its own after a while.
This year's swim was really good because they layed out the entire course with lanes, so it was just a matter of swimming parallel to the lane - no veering off course. For some reason, there was this Caucasian that kept cutting across my path. We weren't exactly with a crowd of swimmers - in fact, we were leading the pack. And this is after all the sea - we do have quite a bit of room you know. Hope he wasn't getting off just swmming real close...... Sorry, I digress. Anyway, manage to complete the swim without further incident. Think I did a pretty respectable time of 30min - plus or minus.
Then came the dreaded run. To tell you the truth, I was in no shape to do 10km. Up to that day, the longest run I did was maybe about 6km - and that's pushing it a bit. I know some of you out there wouldn't even break sweat running 6km but we're talking about me here. Big old 85kg, flabby, out-of-traning-for-a-year me. I gotta admit, thoughts of giving up were floating around my head when I hit the 5km mark. Around that time, I saw Ironmandreamer literally flew past me. "Hmmm", I thought,"How encouraging. Now if only I could borrow a bike....." I killed that thought 2km later. Might as well finish it with only 3km left. And I did. Like I said earlier, without Vincent's help, I might have just given up. Thanks pal!! :-D
That's it. My long and short of Biathlon 2007. I'll be launching my come back this year so you can look forward to more blogs from me on the races that I'm gonna take part in. I'll make sure I train up for them this time round. Until then, adios amigos! (Hope I got that right...)
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