Tri Peer Pressure is REAL!

What. In. The. World…

I’m amazed at the support from the tri people I’m meeting lately…whether it’s at a race, in a few tri groups I belong to, my TriMafia peeps, coworkers, or the husband. It does feel a little like peer pressure, but in a great way! Somehow, some way, I have verbally committed to being on a Half Ironman team to do the swim leg in June of 2017. WTF!? How the F did I get here? Because really….even though I have a goal to finish a Half IM by 2020 that feels far away. And it also feels a little intangible. Not impossible, just far away to the point that it’s not touchable, it’s invisible, and so far out that the reality isn’t quite there yet.

HOWEVER, now I’ve gone & committed to doing this Half IM on June 4, 2017. Not the whole thing, but I’m doing it as a relay and my part is the swim. A 1.2 mile swim…..ya know, just a little swim in a lake with 2000 of my friends. I mean, it’s ONLY a half…..not like it’s the full 2.4 miles. ..amiright?

Knowing that in order to actually DO a Half IM, I need to be able to do each of the 3 legs independently so it does make sense to take these steps. June ’17 is down the road, but the planning for that started about two weeks ago… It’s mid September as I’m writing this. Not only have I committed verbally (soon to be officially with payment) but with that commitment also comes the training piece. Yesterday I signed up for a 1.2 mile swim event on October 8th that replicates the exact course I’ll be doing. So in 3 weeks I have to do this swim. It will tell me many things: can I do it? what do I need to do to improve over the next 10 months? where is my weakness? what am I comfortable with? can I do this with or without a wetsuit?

The best part of this is that numerous people have said fantastic and supportive things to me about this – not one of them has said any version of “don’t do that”…and my husband gave me a giant hug and huge surprised eyes when I said I signed up for the October swim. I expected more of an eye roll, here we go again expression. But it wasn’t that at all. It’s like he’s realized that this weird tri stuff has become part of who I am and I’m going to keep moving forward with it. Tri peer pressure (support) has been really amazing lately. So glad I keep bumping into the right people lately.