Big Goal for 2020

First of all, I can't believe it's 2020! I ended the last few months of 2019 by getting braces, which is something I've wanted to do for the past 4 years, to fix my crooked teeth. The cost of it held me back for a long time, but I finally decided it's worth it to have good teeth! An unexpected benefit of getting braces was that I lost weight. My teeth hurt so much the first two months that I had to put wax on them all the time and I only took off the wax to eat once a day; otherwise I just drank liquids through a straw. So I ended up finally losing the 20 pounds that I've been wanting to lose for the past 3 years!

Starting off 2020, I'm feeling better about my teeth and my body, and I'm feeling ready to crush some other goals I've had for awhile! The number one goal I'm going after is to complete a Half Ironman! I've wanted to do a triathlon for a few years, but it's expensive and you need a good bike and a place to swim. I don't know a lot about bikes, and the thought of having to do the research and trying to find a good triathlon bike for an affordable price kept this goal on the back burner.

However, one day when I was working in the ice cream shop, an older gentleman came in with a 70.3 shirt. I asked him if he had done a Half Ironman, and we started talking all about it. He told me that when he first started training, he couldn't swim one length of the pool! And he said that he also didn't have a good bike at first. He started off with spin classes at the gym for awhile before he bought a bike. Somehow this was so encouraging to me! If someone else can start at ground zero like that, then I can too!

I haven't signed up for the race quite yet, but I've taken some steps towards being ready. I joined the YMCA so I now have access to bikes, spin classes, and the pool. I've already been doing some biking and swimming to pre-train. I pulled out my "Simple 70.3 Training Plan" that I printed out in 2015 and wrote down all the workouts in my calendar. So I'm definitely a few steps farther along now and thinking I can really start training for this thing in February.

A crucial next step is finding a good bike. The customer I talked to recommended a facebook group for used triathlon gear, and I've been checking it to see if I can find a used bike that's affordable. Also in the past few years, I met my friend Lacy in Hawaii. She's done 2 Ironmans, so I've been able to ask her all my questions and get great advice from her. She's going to send me some of the gear, including a tri suit and bike water bottle.

I'm excited to start training and learning more about the Half Ironman. There are many things that are still daunting. The long bike ride in an aero position scares me (and using clip-on pedals). The open water swim scares me (even though I'm a good swimmer, I don't want to get kicked in the face!). Running after doing all that biking scares me (I'm worried my legs will be jello). I'll need to figure out my nutrition and race gear and basically everything! But I'm finally ready to tackle this goal!