Editor's Note: We got this email today from T who just completed the first 50-year-old Challenge. Great work T. That's a great swim.We're impressed that you almost made Gold.
Tomorrow I turn 50. I accepted Roman’s challenge to complete a 5 mile swim, 10 mile run and 50 mile bike. I originally planned to do this all on one day. I was not successful, although I came close. I just returned from the pool and have completed the challenge in exactly 36 hours.
As this week approached I decided that 5 miles of swimming was probably not going to be much fun, and would be hard to do considering a bunch of meets going on at my pool have severely restricted access there. So I decided I would swim the 5 miles in parts throughout the week, and take the bronze award. I began by swimming 2000 meters on Wednesday March 26.
My schedule conspired against me and I didn’t get work in on Thursday or Friday, except for a short track workout Friday night. Saturday likewise was a ‘rest day’, working most of the day and them a birthday dinner with my mom and dad.
Sunday came, and I joined the running team I belong to , to prepare for a 10 K we are racing on April 5. We ran a 1.5 mile warm up out to the 5K point on the course, then ran in to the finish at just over 5k pace. Then we repeated that. Finally we did about a mile cool down. 10 miles run done. 1:42
I went home and set my bike up on the trainer. I watched a movie on DVD and listened to the Jetpack podcast (the one with Coach Adam, talking about 140dot6.ning.com) 50 miles ride done. 3:10
Now I went to the pool. A meet was going on all day, but at 3pm half the pool was opened up for public swimming. I swam 4000 meters in exactly 2 hours, including a number of bathroom and nutrition breaks. As I sat at the edge of the pool looking at the clock, I realized that, with the facility open until 10 pm, I could easily swim another 4000, and complete the Gold challenge! As I inserted my ear plugs and pulled on my goggles, a young lifeguard walked over and said “Sir, the pool is closed”.
What!?
“The pool closes at 7 on the weekend. You got to go now.”
So, no Gold challenge. However, I could come Monday morning at 6am. And that would leave me 3 hours in my 24 hour window. Unfortunately, after what I did on Sunday there was no way I was getting out of bed at 5am to swim. I did set the alarm, and I did wake up. But I went back to sleep. This is one of the benefits of being 50. You know when its time to go back to sleep.
Monday night I made it back to the pool. At some point there while I was swimming, I hit an accumulated 5 miles in the week, and satisfied the bronze challenge. I continued and finished an accumulated 5 miles swim over the two day span. 4:00
I have completed the Silver Challenge.
I have learned an important lesson from this. I hate swimming. Its boring, chlorine makes me itch and burns my eyes. I hope never to need to swim more than 2.4 miles in one shot for the rest of my life.
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