How to cram for a triathlon

Rule no. 1: don't. But since it's in my personality type and Jesse Pace signed me up for June 22nd Oly in Ft. Lauderdale, FLA that's what I've gotta do. However, here's the resposibility card: My fitness level is pretty good for swimming and running, but biking ... groan. The biking sabattical has been loong. So, here's how I get at it: the buddy system. Without the buddy system I"d still be running 10 minutes miles at six miles max and probably still listening to my WALKMAN (which is what I still call my iPod).

So, Saturday was Get After It Day and I emailed Matt to see if he'd take me on a ride, I took him to Colman, we swam 3000 meters and then Matt took us on a 40 miler down along the Cedar River Trail. Rule no. 2: make your training as beautiful as possible. The Cedar River was extremely high, a deep silver green and I spotted herons and a quatrain of baby duckies. Rule no. 3 ALWAYS, AlWAYS, stop to say hello to animals. Make nature your heart rate monitor.

On the last ascent with about 5 miles to go I asked Matt if I should do a little one-mile run afterwards to get the feeling of a brick, like I had to ask. "Do two," he said. So I did.

When I was done I didn't stretch at all except some little lame phone-ins on my calves while boiling water for pasta. I've noticed lately, when tired, I tend to go on a stretching strike, and I have to ask myself: why do I, after putting in all this work, at the last minute stop showing up for myself when I really need to keep myself healthy? I think it's the downfall of being too tired, it's hard to care -- some people over eat when they're tired, yell at strangers and babies, and some of us eek out a training session and then come home and collapse.

Somtimes I see myself as a mother who goes to take a nap while the children run wild in the living room and she doesn't care what she wakes up to see, broken vases, torns blankets... And while a philosophy of logic class from the ages of yore outed the fact that argument by analogy is a false, I need analogies for their visuals and metaphors in order to "see it." Plus I'm a poet so there.

Today I ran and swam and not much stretching again. Ok, none. Maybe this week I"ll be a better mother to myself, or ask: What would my wisest self do? Stretch! I am not full of wisdom today, instead have sights on Las Vegas and an episode of CSI.