M&A, Triathlon - not really training

I'm doing my first ever triathlon, an olympic distance this Saturday in Canmore. Shawn Bunnin lured me into this, and I believe his girlfriend lured him in. It was an easy sell as I figured doing an olympic distance a couple of weeks ahead of this half iron man I signed up for would probably be wise.

Tori expressed great loving concern that I a) have not swam in probably 15 years, which may seem like an exaggeration, but it's not. Tori can attest to the fact that I don't even like getting wet if I can help it, which was interesting on our prior Hawaiian vacations, and b) didn't want me to drown. "Practice" hasn't entered my life as before and after BC Bike Race I've been a) working 18 hour days, and b) moving my house.

Those a's and b's are a far cry from the regimented brick workouts popular among triathlon circles, and anyone with half a brain who's also not employed as an investment banker.

Tori is right that I shouldn't drown. I don't know why, either hubris or niavetee, but I figured I could swim that far. She wanted me to prove it in something other than a deep lake.

The deal was for me to swim first. But the other deal, that's been on the back, front and side burners in varying arrangement for a long while, was coming to a head today. Tori waited for 45 minutes past my expected arrival time because she understands. Good news is, the drawn out meetings ended with a handshake deal. Perfecto.

Tonight we went to Bankers Hall club, and I managed to swallow water, tire out muscles I haven't used in ages (if ever) and in the process, swim 40 minutes of front crawl uninterrupted. When I say uninterrupted that needs to be qualified with the fact that I don't remember from teenage swim club how to do those fancy end of pool turns. I have recollections of "being made to swim forever" or something to that effect when I was 12 and 13. I bet it wasn't actually very much total time, it probably just felt like it. I hazard to guess this may have been the longest swim of my life. Tori was faster than me every single lap.

Provided my arms don't fall off, which feels like a real possibility at this point, I think I can avoid drowning.

Further to this, I ran at lunch (only on a treadmill) which was more of a challenge getting away from my desk than the actual running. A few intervals were thrown in, and (by treadmill to reiterate and qualify) I ran a 48 minute 10k. I've done quite a bit better than that in the past, as I calculate my best 10k ever was actually a pro-rated portion of a 16k I did once. I don't have a bloody clue how it feels to do one after swimming and biking. Under an hour would be nice ; )

These are doing nothing for my performance Saturday at this point, they're just alleviating potential uncertainty and post race soreness. I know I can ski, tele ski, snowboard and bike on a second's notice. Running is just running, you can't really wipe out or drown, you can just be sore after if you haven't ramped up. You can be slow and poor and injured, but it's not often that you just can't make it 10k. Swimming was a question mark of sorts.

Triathlon seems to require way more trying than cycling. But I'm biking home soon just to complete the trio of events.