My husband has many hobbies. He mountain bike rides, he runs with me and in the past he used to be an avid surfer.
While looking for local 5ks, I’ve come across ads for triathlons. There are so many at different distances; sprints, Olympic, half-ironman and ironman.
To me it seemed like a no brainer for Jeff. He can ride pretty well and pretty far on a mountain bike, certainly he could ride as far if not farther on a road bike. He runs with me and can easily do laps around me if he chose to (he’s got the best set of lungs on him. I’m envious every time we run). The swim was the only question in my mind. He used to swim with a surfboard in tow, in the ocean, so I figured, he could probably do well with some additional training.
So I started suggesting to Jeff that a long time (note I said LONG TIME) goal of doing a half-ironman sounded pretty cool. 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, 13.1 mile run = 70.3 miles of bragging rights for the rest of your life.
It must have sounded interesting enough because Jeff started researching triathlons online. I mentioned he should probably start looking into some local sprint triathlons to see if he would even be interested. Apparently this went in one ear and out the other.
Jeff took interest in this. Approximately 1 year from now he wants to compete in the Oceanside Ironman 70.3.
He’s already found a book to use as a training guide, a magazine geared towards first time triathletes, contacted the race coordinators to see when 2012 registration will be opening, and asked his friend to train him on his swimming technique. Given that the race entry fee is hefty ($275 in 2010 hefty) I encourage his aggressiveness to be sure it’s not just a passing fad.
He has also agreed to start looking at shorter triathlons to make sure this is his thing. He could get done with a sprint and realize, it’s just not for him and throw the whole plan out the window. (To which my pocketbook would probably sigh with relief.) I even mentioned there are a few just bike races (half centuries, centuries) that I could definitely see his crazy old ass self doing. He just gave me a non-committal shrug and said sure.
Realizing what I started, I probably would take it all back. I may have just created a monster hell bent on pushing himself and as a indirect result, pushing me.
Guess we’ll just have to wait and tri. 
