Training Day...

Remember the movie Training Day? If you didn't see it, a short synopsis would go something like this.... Good cop gets paired with REALLY REALLY bad cop, almost gets fired , killed, corrupted etc.. but ends up surviving through some combination of luck and seemingly Divine intervention... So what does this have to do with triathlons you say? Well can you imagine Ethan Hawke's character (the good cop) the next day? He must have thought, "Well I'm set now 'cause it can't get any worse!" Well my first training day went something like that...

It started innocently enough, I woke up and plodded downstairs ready for breakfast. After all, you gotta fuel up if you want to work out, right? Oh damn... no food! No milk for my cereal, last bagel is moldy, well U get the idea. I know, I'll get dressed and run over to Tastee Diner! I walk outside, damn again, I forgot, my car is in the shop and it's 39 degrees out! Now this could dissuade many an athlete but I was not to be deterred! I pumped up the tires on my mountain bike (I figured riding on knobbies would lessen my wind chill) and off I went.

I was frozen solid in about 5 minutes, but with bottomless coffee and my friend and waitress Claudia awaiting, I rode on. Of course, trying to ride on the previous nights dinner of wheat thins proved tougher than I had anticipated. I managed to make the 5 mile or so ride nonetheless and proceed to imbibe a whopping 3 coups of coffee (not to mention 2 eggs, whole wheat toast, grits, and a couple of glasses of water for good measure). So now nicely filled up I pedaled back home. With some carbs in me to power my brain I thought, "I guess its's time to start training!"

So where do you start when training for an event? Step 1: set a reasonable goal. My last Olympic distance tri I did in about 3 hours and 11 minutes and my bete noir in that race was the swim. I simply didn't have enough endurance. So my first thought: Train my weakness.

So to the pool I go. Oh, did I mention that by this time it is now colder and raining? A smarter man would merely have switched workouts and say, rode indoors on their trainer, but not I! I will ride my bike to the pool, I mean, so what if it's cold and slippery and by the time I return it will probably be dark?

When I arrived at the virtually empty pool I was greeted with the "That guy is crazy look" and I began to think they might be right. I was so wet I could have just swam in my cycling gear, but to keep from making a spectacle of myself (or at least less so) I changed into my swim suit. I haven't swam in about 3 months and it showed... Tired arms, weak kick, you name it. But at least I managed to get my training started. And much like Ethan Hawke in Training Day, I figure from here on in it's got to get better......

Rob....