Training 6/16 - 6/22 ... and Triathlon as Spectator Sport?

You can observe a lot by just watching. -- Yogi Berra

First, last week's training:


Sunday 6/16 - 1:45 bike (27.48 hilly miles, on Baby)
Monday 6/17 - 45 minute swim (lesson)
Tuesday 6/18 - 3.62 mile run, 25 minute swim
Wednesday 6/19 - 60 minute swim (including broken mile on 0:10)
Thursday 6/20 - reverse mini tri (30 minute run, 60 (58) minute bike on Baby, 30 (24) minute swim)
Friday 6/21 - 50 minute swim
Saturday 6/22 - 20 minute OWS, 5.31 mile run

For last week and the next two weeks, the training plan is going discipline specific.  Last week was swimming - you may have guessed that.  I've never smelled so much like chlorine in my life...although I'm pretty certain that if I'm going to keep this up, I'll need to continue to smell like chlorine is actually oozing out of my pores.  Maybe then my swim phobias will be quelled.  Anyway, this week is run and next week is bike.  Should be interesting.

So, the swim monkey - hubby was racing this past weekend and there was a practice swim the morning before.  I went out and swam a bit there.  The water was fairly calm and wetsuit legal...not that it matters for a practice swim, but just sayin'.  Unfortunately, although I did much better than I have in the OWS practices here in town (where the current has been ungodly), I still didn't do well.  I have a problem believing that I'm making any progress.  It's a common thought - in the pool, when you're swimming, there are walls every 25-50 meters.  You can see the end of the pool always and you make progress quickly to the wall.  In OWS, the buoys are a hell of a lot further away and it takes a long time to get there...and you just feel like you're swimming forever and going nowhere - even when you are.  This really bothered me.

On the plus side - not bothered by not being able to see the bottom.  Not bothered with having to sight and correct course (at least not on Saturday when the current wasn't bad).  There weren't any people around me, so I didn't have to worry about being kicked or run into.  It should have been a good swim - but I got hung up on that whole..."will I ever make it to the first buoy?"...thing.  Not good.  Need to fix that - but unfortunately it's all mental - and I'm not good at fixing mental.

The other thing I did this weekend was spectate.  I'm not usually a spectator at a triathlon.  But hubby was doing his first Oly so we made a short weekend of it.  We didn't get to see his swim start due to a bit of traffic snafu, but we saw him in and out of T1 (switching from swim to bike), in and out of T2 (switching from bike to run), and then the girls got to run in with him.  It's a really sweet gesture on the part of REV3, the race company, to let the finishers bring their family into the finish line with them.  Most races don't let you do that - and really, triathlon, no matter how you slice it, is a family sport.  The family suffers while the triathlete trains.  This is part of why we are making it a family affair - if the family watches and the family does triathlons, then the activity doesn't seem like so much of an imposition on the family as a whole.  However, with regard to spectating, watching a triathlon is kind of boring (if you aren't me).  You only get to see your athlete for limited snatches of time before having to kill an hour or more.  Now personally, I think it is cool to get to see other peoples' bikes and cheer for everyone, but I'm kind of a nerd - I try to learn from watching other people and what they have and what they do.  But for the normal mortal (or my children - close enough to normal mortals) - BORING.  They were troopers though.

I'm concerned, though, about their spectating at my half this fall - because it won't be killing an hour between sightings - I'll be out on the bike for over 3 hours...probably closer to 4.  Not sure how they're going to kill that much time - although I guess they can leave and come back, but that too is a pain in the behind with traffic and parking due to the race.  There's a good chance they won't even be able to come, given their busy schedules.  But if they do, I do not envy my husband at all - keeping them entertained as tri-spectators is not easy.