My first post!

When I heard that I had gotten into the NYC marathon via the lottery, I had to start a blog. My husband teases me, he calls me the reluctant triathlete. I am petrified to ride the roads near our home on my bike, I might get hit, I was terrified to open water swim, I still freak myself out thinking, are there piranhas in the James River that might get me? At the very least there has to be a snapping turtle out there dreaming about my toes and how they taste....

Now, I am the "Reluctant Marathoner" I want to get a shirt made up with that so I can run the Marathon in it. My husband said one day, hey Dee, do you want to put our names in the lottery for the NY marathon? I say, Yeah sure, thinking to myself, my chances are slim to none that I would get picked. As luck would have it, I got picked and my husband didn't. Ever the resourceful man, he had a contingency plan if he wasn't chosen lottery style. He picked a charity he liked and is fundraising for it to get in. So now we are raising funds to help a very worthy organization and here we go with our training.

Actually we tri trained today. We did hill repeats on our bikes on a quiet road in Powhatan. Very little traffic so I didn't feel like a squirrel with her days on the road numbered, and a pretty wicked hill. We got to hammer it up this long hill five times! Whee! Then we got to do just the steep part as hard as we could five times. I kind of blew it on that though. I couldn't break fast enough to stop at the steepest part of this blasted hill and wound up doing 6 long hill climbs and three short, nasty bursts up the hill. More like a mountain by the last time for me, my legs were like lead and I was having a hell of a time getting out of the saddle to make the last part of this hill. Did I mention that on the downhill part I was going 36 miles per hour??? I was amazed that I could be on a bike going that fast and not get hurt. But I did, and my husband promises me it is the work outs like these that will make me a better athlete. I think they are the reason for me being reluctant.