The first of a few

HI!! OK the training doesn't start until tomorrow but thought I'd start a blog to keep me honest on my endeavours to pursue my first Olympic distance tri next year. I did my first (and only to date) triathlon in August (sprint400m/20k/5k) and was really surprised at how wonderful and welcoming all the participants, marshalls and spectators were - and have to say when I staggered out of the swim and on to my bike I felt like the preverbial pig in muck- I loved every minute of it, including the madness of trying to run at the end which was entertaining. I ran (ok more like waddled) my way around the 5k and could only cheer (whilst gasping for breath) at the athletes who coasted past me - amazing!

So why a triathlon?!! Well I guess I'm a little sporty which will help my endeavours. My usual sport being hockey (field that is) but now I feel I'm not motivated to keep my fitness up for hockey as I've had a year away and not motivated to want to perform at my previous standard and so although still playing there's no inspiration to maintain/ improve fitness which was previously the case. So a new challenge was needed; i love being fit and wanted a goal other then hockey which would inspire me enough to want to put the hours in for training and keeping fit.... and so I found the Sprint Tri in August. The event was run by a local Tri club so I'm lucky I can join that and get some training in a structured way (particularly swim which is - er entertaining for want of a better word - picture lots of splashing and getting nowhere fast!).

So I've got a great book which helps both with goal setting and working out a training programme.. can't remember it off hand but it's something like "The Triathlon Training Bible" and it's excellent. My schedule starts officially in a couple of weeks - but at the moment I'm starting to put in increassed hours (gradually) as I'm intending to start off with a 8.5hr training week. Whether I manage this much remains to be seen - but that's part of the reason for the blog as hopefully it'll keep me honest! My rough intentions for this week are 2 hours swim (join the tri club!), 2 hours bike, 1hr easy run + 3hrs hockey (training and match)... blimey now I've written that down it sounds like a bit... so we'll see how it works out... hopefully work won't get in the way ;o)

OK enough wittering on for now - let's see how it goes!