Hello Ladies,

I must admit that it is a bit intimidating to post here, considering that so many of you are such experienced triathletes (doing Ironmans, etc). But you really seem like such a nice group of women, so here goes...

I am participating in a sprint tri on May 20th - a 250 yard pool swim, 9.3 mile bike ride, and a 3.2 mile run.

As you can see from my name, I consider myself a newbie to biking. I got my road bike last summer, so I haven't been biking for even a year yet.

I got myself a personal trainer and I have been working out with him twice a week to get ready for this tri. He is mostly working with me on weight training, mixed with short bursts of cardio to get my heart rate up in between sets. It is really hard.

My strongest area is swimming, my weakest area is running, and biking is somewhere in the middle.

I am very slow but steady on my bike. I can bike up to 50 miles now, but my average speed is always somewhere around 10 miles per hour. It is almost impossible to bike without running into hills in my area. Sometimes I am going as slow as 3 or 4 mph when going up these hills. I'm not complaining, it is just a fact of life!

My running is even slower - it takes me around 13 minutes to run a mile, so my 5K time is around 42 minutes.

I can swim 250 yards in just over 4 minutes. Not bad...

My goal is to complete the triathlon in 1 hour and 30 minutes.

I have one month left - is this a reasonable goal?

Is there anything that I can do in the next few weeks to get just a little bit faster on my bike?

Oh, and by the way, I am 52 years old and 5 feet tall.

Thanks for any help that you can give me.

Lynette