"We stand in awe…"

A thread over on scienceblogs reminded us of this article by Prof. PZ Myers of the University of Minnesota: We stand in awe at the heights our people have achieved.

Triathlon, really?

I know I’d be seriously undertrained, but I can’t find anything about offical cutoff times on the Web site, so presumably I could muddle along until finished.

Here’s a sample of how trained you should be, from beginnertriathlete.com:

You already know how to run [ha!], so you must work in the biking and swimming while only increasing in these events by no more than 10% a week. Once you have gotten up to 20min swim (forward crawl - no stopping), 30min bike, and 20min run, then you may start the final 13 week program. Getting up to these levels might take a month or several depending what you are strong in. Be patient. Swimming might take the longest. Once you have achieved these levels, it is usually a good idea to sustain them for a month or so before going on into the final 13-week sprint training program.

My own training level is that I swim about 600 years in an average training session, with plenty of stops and rests, I can run/walk three miles in possibly 45 minutes or so; and I think biking 20 miles is a long way. I haven’t biked all winter. And it’s in four weeks.

On the other hand, it would be an experience. The swim is around the central pond of the Dunes marina. Water temperatures would be only around 15 degrees C., so I’d need a wetsuit. It could be done.

And thousands of seabirds spend the winter in this estuary, so I’d have to practice not swallowing any water.

Marlowe progress?

I stopped at the vet’s today to buy a relaxing medication for Marlowe, our young female cat. She has a urinary tract inflammation that the vet says may be caused by stress. And I think she’s still worried about her dominance over the boisterous kitten boys, Cloud & Fog. Also, our most skittish cat, Emily, is getting bolder, which means that Marlowe is not feeling well enough to asser herself.

I also bought a few groceries for lunch-making supplies.

Triathlon?

I’ve finished a set of practice sessons with the triathletes and need to decide whether to sign up for another five weeks.

One interesting factor in my decision is that I have a chance of doing a short triathlon in April. It would be 1/2 mile of swimming, 15 miles of biking, and  3 miles of running. That would certainly give focus to my training.

It would mean doing about 35 lengths of my current pool and developing some stamina for the bike. One factor is time limits: how drastic are the cut-off times? And could I do it without buying a wet-suit.