Wednesday, March 06, 2013

Challenge Accepted

My first Ironman was Coeur d'Alene. Didn't really know what I was doing, but things seemed to work out OK.

Next was Wisconsin. I was a little smarter with my training that time: I knew it was a hilly race, so I spent a lot of time focusing the bike (much to the delight of Jon, who thinks triathlons are swim-bike-bike-bike-bike-run). The training paid off - I knocked 20 minutes off my bike time, on a more difficult course.

Then was Kona. I was never happy with my marathons, so I decided to focus on my running. It worked, and I beat my Wisconsin marathon time by 30 minutes. (Bike was 15 minutes slower, but with the Kona winds and some race strategy on my part, I'm not complaining.)

Now I have to do Cozumel. I feel like it's time I did some extra swim training. I know, I know... it's the least important leg to worry about. But I really never was a great swimmer, and I think I should try to improve my swim time (all 3 Ironman swims are within 5 minutes of each other.)

To this end, I made the goal to do 100 swim workouts before Ironman Cozumel in December. I mentioned this to Wisconsin Steve (former tri team swim coach) who didn't think it was very realistic for me. In fact, I have a $10 bet with him that I'll be able to do it. To track my progress, I have a 100ml graduated cylinder:


Here are the rules (made up by me, not necessarily agreed upon):
• For every swim workout I do, I'll add 1 ml of water.
• I can replace workouts lost due to evaporation.
• A workout must be at least 30 minutes of laps. Splashing around in the pool doesn't count.
• One hour or more of laps still only counts as one workout.
• Our 1/2 mile Malibu ocean swims count as a full workout regardless of time. (They're cold and choppy and I want full credit.)

I made the bet with Steve 2 weeks ago, and you may notice the cylinder is still empty. Yes, that's a bit of a problem but I think I'll be getting into the pool again at some point this month.


4 Comments:

Blogger Cyril Rickelton-Abdi said...

I raise Steve's bet to $20...
You fear water more than French people fear a bath (or the German army, depending)...
No way you will reach 100 workouts in the remaning time (around 260 days?)... You would have to train more than twice a week! NAHHH! Won't happen!

10:25 PM  
Blogger HHP said...

THere's only one problem. Water evaporates. You need a new tracking method.

10:16 AM  
Blogger Doctor Loomis said...

Easiest $10 I'll ever make.

10:07 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You sould put in a quarter (or whatever denomination is equal to 1 ml of water). That way, if you lose, you've already saved more than enough to pay him back - OR - if you win, you'll have enough to buy a few margaritas in Cozumel!
-g

4:36 PM  

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