Gravenhurst Triathlon

Well, I did it.

I signed up for my first Olympic distance triathlon.

I'll be competing in the July 13th Gravenhurst olympic tri. That's the famous triathlon where athletes get to hitch a ride on The Seguin, a passenger steamship. The boat takes us out into the lake where we get to jump off and swim 1,500m back to shore.

It's a pretty popular race and, because we take a boat to the start line, there is a cap of 300 competitors in both the Olympic and the Sprint triathlon.

Which means I had to commit....early.

I've booked my race and Doug and I booked a B&B on a neighbouring lake.

Now all I need to do is a) start training and b) start working out the diabetes details.

The training part is pretty easy - at least in theory. I just have to do it. I'm not worried about the swim - I swim twice that distance three times per week. Plus I can get into open water by June so I'll have a several opportunities to practice sighting and dealing with waves before the big day. I'm a little worried about the bike portion which is 40km. I'm not strong on the bike and I get pretty tired and sore after 30k. I'm most worried about the 10k run at the end. I'll be pretty tired by then and running for an hour (and a bit) is going to take mental strength as well as physical endurance.

A lot of it.

My rough math has me taking 30 minutes to do the swim, an hour and a half on the bike and then seventy minutes for the run. Add some transition times in there and this will take me almost 3 1/2 hours to finish. That's a lot of time to be doing anything.

I'm also trying to figure out how to handle the fact that I have to be unhooked from my pump for so long. Normally it's about 30-40 minutes between the time I unhook and head to the water and when I get back to the transition zone after the swim.

This time it will be over an hour. The swim alone will take 30 minutes (or so) and we have to get to the boat, board the boat, ride the boat, jump off the boat (two at a time) and then gather at the start line. It's a long long time and makes me really really wish I had a waterproof pump.

So first thing I have to do is work out some sort of training schedule for running and cycling. I have four months to build my strength on the bike, do a lot of brick training (going from cycling to running) and figure out my race day routine. I'll have the Welland sprint tri three weeks before Gravenhurst which should be good practice.

Any tips on training or diabetes management are more than welcome.