An update on how the outside of the comfort zone is going

So about a month ago I filled you all in on how my journey outside my comfort zone was starting off. From a running perspective I had some adventures at Runlab and parkrun, but have stuck to running a relatively steady 3kms once or twice a week which is my max triathlon distance , while I worry about training for the other legs.

If I have any natural sporting ability at all ( which I highly doubt) it is probably in the pool. As a kid I was a squad swimmer and could swim forever. So it was time to get back in the pool. The race distance is 300 m, which sounds easy enough, and I thought I could get away with training at the pool once a week but after my first visit to the pool in a few months I quickly changed my mind and upped it to two.

Again with the comfort zone, despite it being the heat of summer, into the indoor 25m pool I went. I could barely make 2 laps without a quick breather hence the change to twice a week in the pool. The good thing about swimming (for me anyway) is I find it quick to make progress and after a month I can swim the 300 m in a row without too much huffing and am up to 750 m a session. Am trying to increase my distance by 50 m a week , which sounds quite lame when compared to running now that I think about it.

But my big breakthrough came last week when I decided to harden up a bit and ventured out to the “big pool ” . I am not really sure what I was worried about, I certainly can swim well enough not to drown. It’s just this whole comfort zone business really. It’s much quicker to get to the end of the small pool or something. I went to jump in the 25m pool , which was looking particularly crowded at 5.10 am, so out I went, in I got the 50 m pool and surprise surprise it was just fine. No going back now. I am pretty confident about the swim now, and just need to keep swimming.

The bike is another story all together. When I was in my early 20’s I went to Europe on a contiki tour and despite having not ridden a bike for about 10 years decided it would be a good idea to sign myself up for ride through the Austrian Alps. In hindsight this was not a good idea and I had a massive accident and swore off bike riding till my son got his first bike and I decided it really wasn’t good enough that his mum couldn’t ride a bike. So with the help of my rather excellent husband, he taught me to ride again and bought me a fabulous hybrid bike I know as Dora ( the explorer .. Get it ) .

So while I can technically ride a bike there is apparently quite a difference between being able to ride a bike all leisurely style around a flat park or some quiet holiday town , and actually ride a bike on the road with cars and hills and using the gears properly. Thankfully in the midst of all this my baby sister has come along and declared herself my coach/ training buddy and has proved her weight in gold with my first attempt at a decent cycle of around 12kms where she helped remind me about the gears and was so ridiculously encouraging that my confidence went from about 10% to 80%. So now hopefully it’s just all about the training , training, training.

It’s less than a month to go, so it’s lots more training, and I need to sort out a few things .. Like make a big girl decision on my distance .. Oh and the brick .. I will fill you in soon , oh and for all you cross trainers I made a new hashtag #rachelsrunnersdootherstufftoo .. Use it!

Alex – x