So last summer quarter I took a class which alleged to be about Stress Management for Health and Wellness, but which was not so much, really. But I did wind up getting something out of it — for a project, I consolidated some of the stuff I’d been noodling on for a while, like my plot to start running this summer and complete a 5k race (which I did!), and came up with new goals. I find that I am good at coming up with ambitious things to do, but unless they have concrete deadlines attached, I suck at actually carrying through with them. (Which is why I signed up for the 5k long before I could run for more than 90 seconds at a time — and why I’m not done with a lot of my independent study stuff for school, but I digress.)

So, for that class, I not only wrote in a paper that I handed in (so there was one witness), but presented to the whole class (so there are like 20 of them): I want to do a sprint distance race in the Chicago Triathlon in 2011, and an international distance race in the London Triathlon in 2012.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a crazyniquischeme!

I think I’m blue-skying a little, but even so, I think I can do this. The sprint distance is not so bad: 750m swim, 20k bike (well, 18k at the South Shore), and 5k run. I can clearly do a 5k (and I’m still getting better at it), and swimming is a piece of cake for me, and I biked 15 miles at Bike the Drive this past spring after a 5 mile “training” ride a week ahead of time (a ride I went on mainly so I didn’t get a totally sore butt from 15 miles on a bike, more than for actual “training”), so I know I can do all the individual pieces, and I don’t have any worries about that, really. It’s just gluing them together that’s the issue; being able to do all of them in sequence. But, … well, that is why I signed up for races far, far in the future. (Well, that, and the fact that that is when they happen. Sue me.) I have like 42 weeks before the South Shore Tri, and like 47 until the Chicago Tri. I’m doing the South Shore Tri, which is in July, as a sort of practice run, because it’s much smaller and I hope to get kicked in the head much less while swimming. And the really great thing about being a wee bitty beginner is that I don’t actually have to care about times or personal bests or whether this helmet is more aerodynamic to shave half a second off my bike time than that other helmet… I basically just have to finish, and I win at triathlon forever.

Of course, despite my happily blue-skied “Of course I can do all those parts of a triathlon, don’t be silly!” stuff, even I must admit I have to do some sort of training so I can glue them all together and do them all, like, at once. So I’ve come up with the sort of training plan even a slacker like me can do, I think: Right now, I work out with a personal trainer on Sundays, doing weights and core/balance. (IT’S SUPER FUN. SO SUPER FUN, ABOUT EVERY SUNDAY MORNING AT 9:30 I THINK LONGINGLY OF CANCELLING FOREVER.) Then I’ve been running 2-3 times a week usually, and since summer vacation ended, I’ve been going before work. (WHY AM I DOING THIS AGAIN??) So I think, right now, I’m pretty reliable on Sunday core, Monday run, and either Wednesday or Friday run. (If I don’t beat myself up about not going one day, it gives me a little leeway for when I have insomnia, which I think is useful for me personally, at least until/if I ever shake the insomnia.) I figure, every six weeks, I will add a day of working out. So in 5 weeks I have my 5k, which will be fine with my current training schedule, and then a week after I’ll add another day, either biking or swimming. Since it’ll be frigging cold then, in mid-November, I won’t be too sad to have to stay indoors to swim or ride an exercise bike. Also, classes end at Thanksgiving, so I only have to struggle through about two weeks of school with that schedule before I get a break. Around new years, I’ll add another day, whichever one I didn’t add in Nov. First week of Feb, I’ll add another day, which will take me up to 5-6 days a week of working out, which will make me morally superior to all y’all slackers, if nothing else. In March, I think I’ll try to do the Shamrock Shuffle, which is an 8k run, which I hope I’ll be able to do all right at, but OTOH, it’s always frigging snowing while people are Shamrock Shuffling by in the cold, so maybe I’ll say “screw this, this is nuts, I’m getting a hot chocolate,” and not do it. Who knows. Anyways, then I just have to keep up with my schedule and maybe switch off a running day for swimming or biking if either of those areas seems like they need the extra help. And I’ll probably start adding in bricks, which is fancypants triathlon slang (see, I’m getting it! I AM PRACTICALLY DONE WITH THE RACE ALREADY.) for doing two different activities back to back, like swim-then-bike or bike-then-run, like you do it in the race. And it’ll be March so I’ll have to buy a bike, so I can go biking outside instead of in my nice comfortable gym. And…that is quite far out enough for me to be planning, at the moment. Until I prove I can stay on track for, like, two months, I think I don’t need to be planning for six, just yet.

So anyways, that’s the plan. Slow fat triathlete niqui! Wish me luck (and the ability to wake up on time so I can actually pull off regular exercise in addition to work and school…)!