Post Triathlon Thoughts
Well, I ran my first ever triathlon this past weekend and lived to talk about it. This was a pretty modest Sprint tri— 400 meter swim, 15 mile bike ride, and a 3 mile run— and I can confidently say I won’t be doing an Ironman any time soon, but I’m still proud of the accomplishment. More importantly, I feel pretty good about my fitness right now in terms of preparation for my running road trip this summer. I am close to fully recovered from my sprained ankle, and my conditioning level feels close to where I was before my foot injury last fall. If you’d like to learn more about what I’m training for and how you can get involved, please check out the rest of the website, but here are some specific reactions to my first tri.
The Swim: This was the part of the competition I was most nervous about. I’ve never been an especially strong swimmer, in no small part because I never learned to swim well or for very long with my face in the water. I was able to get into the YMCA pool a few times before the race, but hadn’t done any open water swimming. I was genuinely worried I might not be able to finish the swim, or that I might literally be the last person out of the water. I was also pretty worried about the water temperature and how I might react— early in the week, the water was only in the low 60s, which seemed like it might really impact my performance. And I was worried that the swim would tire me out to the point that I would really struggle in the other events.
In reality, the swim was definitely my weakest of the three events, but my biggest fears proved to be unfounded. We had a few hot days right before the competition, which raised the water temperature about 10 degrees up into the low 70s— it was really pretty comfortable for swimming. I was slow and spent most of the swim getting passed by other people, but I finished it and was not dead last getting out of the water, so we’re calling it a win. When I first hit the water I got a little carried away and started to swim way too fast, which had me pretty exhausted with a long way to go. However, after about 100 meters there was a point where the water was shallow enough that you could put your feet down and touch bottom, which allowed me to catch my breath, refocus, and attack the rest of the swim in a more methodical, measured way. I saw someone else get pulled out because they were struggling, which made me feel pretty good about my lack of drowning.
The Bike: This ended up being the most frustrating part of the experience, just because I’m too competitive for my own good and I was at a pretty significant technological disadvantage here. I do not own an expensive road bike— my bike, which I’ve had for years, is a modest, hybrid mountain/road bike, with only seven gears and some pretty fat tires. I knew this meant I would be going up against riders on better bikes, but I didn’t appreciate just how much faster those bikes would be until I was actually out on the course. I was pushing myself pretty hard and making good time relative to the training I was done, but I was consistently getting passed by people who I assume have poured a lot of their earnings as an orthodontist into very expensive tri bikes. Since the it was a two lap course, all of the leaders lapped me on my first loop, which was not a fun experience.
But, I went into it knowing that I wasn’t trying to win, and it was a beautiful day for a bike ride. I did pass some people on their expensive bikes and I was a long way from dead last, but the bigger takeaway is probably that I continue to get too caught up in the competition of it all, which makes it harder for me to enjoy the feeling of pushing myself and enjoying my own modest athleticism, which really should be the point.
The Run: I’m not a swimmer or a competitive biker, but I do consider myself a runner. I was most confident about this leg of the race, but also concerned that I might be too tired at this point to run the way I know I’m capable of. But once I got off the bike and started running, I actually felt strong a settled into a pace that I was very happy with. I ended up running what would have been a pretty good 5k for me in general, let alone after I’d already done about 90 minutes of cardio, and I don’t think I got passed by any other runners (this was an easy goal to accomplish since I was so far back in the pack at that point). I had made a point of doing several training blocks where I biked for a while and then ran, which was important because it is just an odd feeling to suddenly start using those same muscles in a different way— my stride didn’t feel right and I was sore in weird ways while I ran, but I knew that would be the case and pushed through it. As I had hoped, the run was my strongest leg of the tri.
When I finished, I felt strong, like I could have kept going. I was pretty tired for the next several days, but with no weird soreness or apparent injuries. I’ve learned that the point of training is partly to increase your ability to perform, but its more significant role is increasing your ability to recover. The fact that I wasn’t stumbling around the house on dead legs for days after the event tells me that my overall fitness level is getting to be pretty good. I don’t think I’m going to do any more triathlons— the swim just isn’t my thing, and I can’t see myself investing in a genuinely competitive bike— but it was a fun thing to focus my training on and a good bench mark for where I’m at.
If you’re new here, I’m doing all of this to train for a road trip this summer where I’ll be running 5 half marathons in 5 states during the month of July. The whole thing is a fundraiser for the National Diaper Bank Network. If you want to help out, please hit the Donate Now button up at the top of the page. Even small contributions help a lot. Thanks so much!
