Day 360: Registration

Everybody has goals. Some people don't even really realize what their goals are, or that they have any, but they do. Some take hours or even minutes to accomplish, while others take years and in some cases lifetimes to accomplish. I've had a few major goals in my life so far, and for the most part achieved everything I set out to do (missing only the billionaire goal I've had ever since I learned what money is) with relative ease. Not to say that everything I have was handed to me, and I haven't had hardships and setbacks that everyone has experienced. But I've never experienced true feeling of failure in something I've really cared about.

I am officially putting that all on the line by attempting what will be the most difficult task I have ever asked myself to do. On August 30th, 2010, I registered for the 2011 Subaru Ironman Canada.

For those of you who don't know what an Ironman is, its a long distance triathlon consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and 26.2 mile run. Professionals can win an Ironman with a time just under eight and a half hours (females are just under 9) with the average finisher coming in between 12-14 hours. Many competitors will drop out from the race, or cannot finish in the allotted 17 hours, with some races having as high as 20% of racers scoring a DNF (Did not finish).

For those of you who have known me over the past few years, you know that I started doing triathlons 3 years ago, and finished about 15 triathlons of various distances. In 11 days I will compete in the Big Kahuna Triathlon which takes place in Santa Cruz for my first ever half Ironman (1.2 mile swim, 56 miles on the bike, 13.1 mile run) which I'm sure will be a real eye opener into the world of long distance triathlons.

I haven't really blogged about, or even really ever wrote anything down about my life and experiences before, so it will be interesting to see how long this holds up. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure how many of my friends blogs I've ever read, so it may be more interesting to find out how many people besides my Mom (and her friends) will actually read this, but I think it will be good for me to look back at in 360 days, just to see the road behind me and all that I put myself though to attempt this daunting and intimidating race.

For now I will have to head to bed for some much needed rest before my 1.5 hour run tomorrow morning, and hope that I prepared enough for the race in two weeks.

Me, Jenn and Jenny: Moments before sign ups, don't we look ready?