So far, all of my scheduled races have been either canceled or postponed. The repeated excitement of a new race then the disappointment at the cancellation of the said race takes an emotional and psychological toll. Fortunately, racing is not my primary motivation, pushing myself to my limits is what drives me.
My first Ironman is not scheduled until November, so I don’t feel a lot of pressure to swim 2.4 miles anytime soon. However, I am scheduled to race Ironman 70.3 Lubbock in about 6 weeks. The swim length for that race is 1.2 miles, a distance that I’m comfortable doing in training now.
Today, I was feeling particularly energized and ambitious, so I decided to swim three laps around the lake (~3200 yards or 1.8 miles). Raymond, another newbie triathlete was at the lake and wanted to push himself to new lengths too. He planned to do two laps (~2400 yards or 1.2 miles) for the first time. Neither of us has competed in a race that’s longer than an Olympic distance (~1000 yards) but we both have Ironman ambitions, so we tend to push and encourage each other.
Everything fell into place for both of us. He swam two laps and I swam 3!
I was super excited to have averaged 2:02 (min/100yd). If I can maintain this for 4200 yds (Ironman distance of 2.4 miles), then I can complete the swim in just under 1hr30 min.
Woo Hoo!!
