TandemHearts

I have 22 weeks until Barb’s Race – my Half Ironman Triathlon. Two weeks until I start “training.”

I had all sorts of grand ideas about what I was going to do through the winter. Most of them didn’t happen. Whatever… I am still in better shape than I was last year at this time.

Last year I did Barb’s Race as a fundraiser. I don’t think I’m going to do that this year. My pool of potential donors is pretty small and I don’t like hitting them up every year.

I’ve been thinking about my goals for the race. I expect I’ll still race in the Athena class. I weigh 154 lbs. right now. The organizers cut off the Athena class at 145. While I can certainly picture where I could take off ten pounds, I don’t see THAT happening.

Last year I unbelievably placed third in my class. I won the 1.2 mile swim for the group, with a time of 34:34. That’s good enough for me right now and I don’t plan on focusing much training time on the swim again.  Like last year, I’ll swim enough that I’ll be confident I can complete the distance.

I placed 4th on the bike with a time of 3:37. I definitely want to improve there. I was 4th on the run with a time of 3:07. I think I ran maybe 1 out of the 13.1 miles. So there is a lot of room for improvement.

Who knows what this year’s field will be like, so I’m not even going to think about placing again. Although I was only 4 minutes behind second (she beat me on the bike!) and 37 minutes behind first.

I think I’d really like to get the total time under 7 hours, down from 7:27 last year. I think most of the time will have to come off of the run and a bit off the bike.

The time change is coming , the weather is getting warmer and I’m getting into a training frame of mind. Finally.