Why do we... Tri?

The average person must think a Triathlete is an odd duck. I mean, who the hell wants to swim, then go for a bike ride, THEN go for a run??!!

Case in point. This morning I woke up around 4:45am (yes I am a keener LOL) ate TWO bowels of muesli, tossed Elle (my Tri Bike) on the roof rack, made sure I had a solid nutrition solution for this mornings training....in this instance, a protein smoothie, endurox mix, a few bananas and some yoghurt... oh and a 500 ml bottle of 50:50 water/gatorade.... yeah it's in me.

By 5:30 I was all packed up and set out to the Y for my 6am Triathlon Swimming class.

It was a bit rough being in the pool at 5:55am. I'm not used to working out that early but after a hundred metres I started to find my groove. It turned out to be a really fun class! I was waitlisted for the winter session and couldn't get in but luckily my number came up for the spring session so here I am, doing lengths with some pretty hardcore Triathletes! I met some folks who are training hard for a couple 1/2's over summer and ending their season with IMFL. Very cool!

It was a really neat experience to swim in an organized club style environment. I think the biggest thing I took away from this morning’s workout was learning to swim with lots of people around. I say "learning" because you really need to keep the focus on your own stroke and form and not worry about the person in the lane beside you or the person behind you. It was very different then my regular swims when the lanes are virtually empty. It was great practice for a race setting (both open water and pool) when there's heaps of swimmers around.

After the swim I took about an hour and did some easy stretching then geared up for a nice recovery ride outside. I went at a VERY easy pace covering about 32 km in 1.5 hrs, AVHR: 121 (65%MHR). Unfortunately I decided to do some exploring out in the country just North of the City limits and of course there was strong COOOLD NW head wind. ARG!

Did I mention it was cold?

So anyhow, back to my main thesis..

Why do we Tri?

It's simple really. Because we love the lifestyle and more importantly we truly love the training. I mean, anyone who wants to go out riding at 8:30am in the cold and the wind is either nuts or really... really loves to ride.

Pretty sure I'm the latter. :)