I'm kicking around the idea of doing an olympic length triathlon at the end of next season. That's the next step up from the sprint tri. Just to refresh your memory, a sprint tri has a swim of around 500 yards, a bike of around 15 miles, and a 5K run - 3.1 miles. Olympic distance is a 1.5K swim, which is around a mile, a 40K bike - around 25 miles, and a 10K run - 6.2 miles. It's double the run, which will be the toughest part for me, and three times the swim, which may just work in my favor! I know I can do a 25 mile bike, as I've done a few in training for the sprints.
Tonight I went for a swim. When I arrived at the pool, both were completely empty and as I had my choice of the two, I decided to warm up in the warmer pool. I swam the first hundred, adjusted the goggles, and started out again. 300 yards later I was feeling quite warm and decided that after another hundred (completing a 500) I'd shift over to the other pool and do a couple more 500's.
I hopped into the cooler pool, took note of the time clock and started at the top of the nearest minute. About 400 yards in I felt pretty good, and decided I'd shoot for a full mile and see what my time would be. I kept waiting for the weary to set in, but I kept a solid, comfortable pace and felt good through the entire swim! As I finished the 1650, I did a time check. 28:50. Not speedy, but not too bad. The best part was I felt that I could keep on swimming. But since this was my third time in the water since August, I decided to leave it at a mile and work up from here.
28:50 is about 1:45 per 100 yards. Not too shabby. Not too shabby. My race pace for the sprint tri's is around 1:30, so I have some room for improvement. But I now have a baseline time to work with and the confidence that I can swim pretty much indefinitely should the need arise. And I am a solid third of the way to doing an olympic length tri. Now if I can bike 40K and run 10K, and do all three together... everything will be peachy! So, yeah. I think I can be ready for an "Oly" sometime next season.
More Later
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