
Another triathlon registration!
I have never really trained for a specific event before, and since signing up for my first triathlon I have thoroughly enjoyed having something to aim for. It has been fun to know that getting out of bed each morning to go to the gym has an end goal attached to it, as well as the greater purpose of maintaining a healthy body.
Even though I haven’t done it before, setting up a training program to complete a race has mostly come naturally, because I am at such a basic level that my ‘training’ simply revolves around going further each time. As I improve, my training will hopefully one day encompass getting faster, getting more efficient, getting better and getting more technical. But for now, simply increasing distance and not drowning/falling off the bike/developing knee pain is enough to keep this girl happy.
Now that I have signed up for a proper triathlon, it is clear that the baby Bribie Triathlon is really just part of my training for the Olympic Distance triathlon I will be doing in Noosa in October 2016. I guess that was always the intention, but the popularity of the Noosa Tri meant I had to bite the bullet and sign up for it before I have even done Bribie.
I personally couldn’t and wouldn’t attempt Noosa without doing Bribie first. I have heard that some people do jump straight into a full triathlon but I don’t think I could mentally take that on; I need to know I can survive it. So Bribie is smaller (easier?) and less significant than Noosa, but still an essential piece of training to ensure I can line up at the start of an Olympic Distance Triathlon.
I could do as much swimming, biking and running as I want, but only races can really prepare you for races. The nerves, the packing, the nutrition requirements, the transition between each leg in huge areas full of thousands of other athletes’ gear, the mass swim start, the crowds of other cyclists on the bike route, the chaos and adrenalin. These are things that could overwhelm me or intimidate me just thinking about them, if I haven’t had a few mini practice runs before Noosa.
Which got me thinking that I should look into other opportunities to incorporate ‘race training’ before next October, as well as Bribie.
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