I did my first Indoor Triathlon Sprint yesterday, Febuary 7, 2008 and had a great time. The Tri was held at my gym, the JCC or J as we all call it. They had a long Tri and a Sprint, with people competing both Saturday and Sunday. The sprint involved a 400 yard swim (16 lengths of a 50 yard pool), an 8 mile bike ride on spin bikes, and a 2.5 mile run on the treadmill. The long was 750 Swim, 18 Mile Bike, and a 5 mile run.
The swimming portion of the Tri was really my only concern, no worries on the running or the bike. I decided prior to signing up, I would see if I could even swim 400 yards. I was on a swim team as a pre-teen and I tried out for water polo in high school (they require good grades though), so I have some background in swimming, but it's been forever. I started out by swimming laps at lunch about three weeks prior to the race. My first 400 yard time came in at 14 minutes. My stroke was way off, I couldn't catch my breath at the end of the pool, it was very disappointing. Fortunately my second practice session was a little easier and I got it down to about 12 minutes. Another week of training and I was down to 10 minutes; it was time to sign up for the Tri.
In addition to practicing for the swimming, I thought it would be a good idea to throw down 8 miles a few times on a stationary bike. I like riding real bikes on the road, but a stationary bike is about 10 times worse than a treadmill. Anyhow, I soon realized that the swimming wasn't that big a deal, the bike killed me. I figured 8 miles on a bike was a walk in the park, but I was wrong. I did the bike twice and I think my times were well over 20 minutes. I came to realize that if my overall time sucked, it was going to be due to the bike.
Race day came pretty fast. I didn't know what to expect, but the whole deal was very organized. They wrote my number on my arm and leg and checked me in. I proceeded to the bleachers above the pool and watched a couple heats race. As with all my running events, the field included people of different shapes and sizes, a broad age range, and both male and female. Some of the heavier people were faster than you would expect and some of the older people were faster than expected. It just shows that you can't judge a book by the cover, especially when the cover goes flying by your slow ass in the pool or on the road. There is nothing more humbling than getting beat by an 83 year old woman and an 8 year old boy when running a 5k :).
My heat started at 11:20 and there were five of us. Out of all of us, only one had competed in a Tri before and she was 50 plus years old. As the clock counted down, I put my feet on the wall and reached back with both arms to grab the edge, this boy was going to jump out and get some free distance. The clock hit 11:20 and we were off. I burned rubber on the first lap, which is what I didn’t want to do, but I slowed it down and didn’t have much trouble finishing the 400 yards. Much to my surprise, I was the first one out of the pool. I jumped out and the lap counter said 8:01 was my time, way better than expected. I was hoping for below 10 and the best I did in training was 8:45. I quickly threw on my singlet, socks, and shoes, then ran down a couple halls to the spin bike.
The bike was pretty uneventful, I sat, I spun the pedals round and round. It’s kind of monotonous, but there were a few miles where I just wanted to be done so I gave it hell. The distance was being measured by RPM, so you wanted just enough resistance to keep the thing from bouncing and to keep from getting ahead of yourself pedaling. I was off the bike in 17:38 minutes after doing 8 miles and ran over to the treadmill.
I put the treadmill on 10 minute miles for the first quarter, as I really didn’t want to fall over; the transition from bike to running made my leggs kind of wobbly. Once I got going, I kicked it up to 8 minute miles, figuring I only needed to do it for 2.5 miles, so why not give it hell. I have no problems with dieing, especially while exercising. I was able to hold that till the 2.25 mark and then I pumped that bad boy up to about a 7:30 for the last lap. I wanted to compensate for that first slow lap. I finished the treadmill at 20:18 with an 8:10 pace. I was about to hurl coming off the mill, so I walked a quarter mile to cool down and drank some water, and felt a bit better after that.
Anyhow, that was it. It was very exciting and I am thrilled with my final times. They released the results today and I came in 30th out of 133. There were 10 in my age group and I placed 6th. My overall time was 49:03 minutes.
There are a quite a few other indoor triathlons in town and some real triathlons also. I may try one of the real deals for fun sometime this summer.
