Anteater Ironman Triathlon (in absentia)

Shortly after R decided to do the Anteater Iron(wo)man Triathlon, I decided to participate along with her, albeit from 2700 miles away. This is also keeping me running (short distances) and cross-training, which is likely to help with my injury recovery efforts.

Thus far, I have run 11.3 miles out of 26.2, I have biked 36 miles out of 112, and I have swum 0.4 miles out of 2.4. I have another couple of weeks to finish all this, and with my upcoming trip to sunny Southern California (where it is not 17 degrees!) I should be able to stay abreast of the accomplishments of my remote Triathlon partner. I may even finish all three legs within the "official" window for UCI participants that ends March 14, despite the fact that I started a month late. If I retroactively include my activities since the official start on January 7, then I have easily tripled the requisite 26.2 miles, but the running distance was never a concern anyway. The additional biking to & from work that month may help, but since I've not done much swimming at any point, that no doubt will be the sticking point for the whole affair.

I had heard somewhere that the backstroke was not an allowed stroke for the swimming portion of a standard triathlon, so thus far I have eschewed any backstroking. But apparently that is a big fat lie, according to all of the official rules that I could find online. So my subsequent swims should go much better, now that I don't feel like I'd be cheating if I switch to the backstroke and relax a bit more while I'm swimming.