First tri of the year. This should be...interesting.

5kms in 24 minutes and 17 seconds.  Not a bad return on only my third run of the year. The third run of the week.

Having given myself a target of the 24 minutes I was quietly pleased with the results. Equally, the body finished in one piece as well. No knees, calves or ankles were left strewn around Malahide Castle.

So that race was the warm up for the first triathlon of the year - the Fingal sprint triathlon. Tomorrow.  Despite having competed in a number of races last year, I have yet to compete in a sprint triathlon.  While the distance is half of what I have done before there is an increased onus on fitness and an increased heart rate due to the short nature of the event.

Training has gone well in the last 4-6 weeks. I feel relatively in good shape so hopefully

 I feel that I can compete well. Finish in a good time. And most importantly, not make a fool of myself.

Of course that is easier said than done.  I’ve never done a pool based swim, and I have the new time trial bike out for its racing debut.  That isn’t said as a point to boast, more as a point of fact.  I have been out on the bike a number of times, and believe that I have a good feel for it, but as is often said, match fitness is a different level altogether.

So having set myself a target for the run last weekend, I have been trying to work out what is a realistic time to aim for this race.  Now the difference between a challenging time and a realistic time could be as low as two minutes or as high as eight.

So the nerd has set in.  I checked the times from last year’s race. Checked the times of the other newbies from a race two weeks ago.  The calculator, no actually the excel sheet, nearly burned up with the permutations I put through. 

 

And still, I don’t know how near I am to the ‘right’ figure.  ‘Man up,’ I rightfully hear you say. Lay it down. Money where your mouth is. Cliché. Cliché. Cliché.

So this week Matthew, I am going for one hour twenty minutes as the challenging time.  But anything over one hour twenty five minutes and there will be disappointments.

So there it is.  Quite how it all pans out is anyone’s guess.  Sure what could go wrong?