New Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike!

[teawoman]

The Shasta Summit Century, in Mt. Shasta, CA. It's a climbing century...a big stretch for me.

But, I just bought a book called Marathoning for Mortals! I have some friends in my home town who do Ironman Triathlons. One of them did her first Ironman at age 50, and the thought keeps tugging at me, although I haven't run for 20 years, and wrecked my knee doing it (stupid overuse and lack of brains as a college student...didn't listen to my body and rest).

I need to lose some weight before I submit my joints to actual running, but I can swim, and I've been thinking that a winter-long cross training program of walking, swimming, cycling (spinning classes, maybe, in winter) and weight training might be perfect for losing weight and improving my power-to-weight ratio for whatever comes next year. I really, really want to maximize my power on the bike this winter and get lighter and faster for next year.

Wow. A century is scary enough to think about...but a *climbing century*...I didn't know there was such a thing . I actually started triathlon because the first thing I did to get fit was a run-walk program and I found that as I increased distance it bugged my knees. I thought biking would help, so I started that, and I had done a lot of swimming when I was a kid, so it made sense to think about triathlon.

John "the Penguin" Bingham's books are just great! Very encouraging to read. Even Lance Armstrong got a stress fracture when he ran a marathon--he had not accustomed his body to the pounding. I feel better about my running when I remember that!

Your winter plan sounds similar to mine! (prolly mine is a bit smaller scale, tho!) I am a bit scared of losing fitness because we get a lot of snow here and my job is busy in the fall. I can run in the snow, but not bike.

I will look out for your report on the century!