First post-baby triathlon--need some cheers

streamgirl

I have a 2 1/2 year old girl and a year old boy and sometimes it seems that *they* are what I do in my "free time"! But I'm proud of myself because I've signed up for an Olympic length tri in early August and a few sprints throughout the summer. My first one is this Saturday. I've learned to sneak in workouts at lunch, or to bike or run with the kiddos in a trailer. I figure that leaving 100lbs of kid and trailer behind will make the tri bike seem really easy! I eat a lot more consciously and know how much is too much.

I did one Olympic tri pre-kid and would you believe, I didn't put up my photo of me finishing because I thought I looked too fat in my tri outfit! (My weight has always been my issue). Talk about focusing on the wrong things! It's hard to do something like a tri when you feel like you are torn in too many directions and you've never spent as much time prepping as you think you should have. When you feel too tired too often and still don't fit into all your pre-baby clothes because you're just pudgy in different places now!

But my goal is to not worry about any of this during the race, and to be glad that I am out there doing it regardless of my finish time.

dbmata

An oly length, wow! Good luck!

I don't think there is a lot of tri interest here at MFP. I just signed up for my first sprint tri, do they ever seem less daunting?

Have you found any good resources that you like for tri specific training advice?

streamgirl

There's a tri group in here somewhere. I haven't joined, but take a look. They definitely get less daunting--good for you for doing your first!! The resources I know of are women-specific, but I don't see why you couldn't take a look and adapt them. Tri for the Cure in Denver has a free online training program. Honestly I don't put as much effort into them as they have there. i try to work each leg (swim, bike, run) twice a week. One workout is short, with interval training or hills or sprints or similar. The other is a longer, slower session. I just do them to finish, so I'm not so much worried about speed. Gradually work up to your sprint distances or a little over (you can figure out when your race is, where you are at now, and determine what interval to increase each week) and keep your shorter sessions half to 2/3 the longer weekly distance. Back off the week prior and don't work out except a nice walk or so the couple of days before.

The best,. funniest, laugh out loud book is Slow, Fat, Triathlete. She has a great sense of humor and along the way provides lots of great tips about starting at triathlon. I would highly recommend it to anyone--slow or fast, guy or girl, skinny or not. In fact, I'm going to get it off my shelf now--she has a good pre-race checklist. Good luck at yours!