The New Road

Triathlon firsts

I had a couple of triathlon firsts yesterday. It was the first time that I went out in the starting wave of a triathlon. With "Tri For Fun" you self assess as to whether you can go in the starting wave or not. I made the right choice this time. I finished the swim about half way back in the pack and moved up a little on the bike.

I really need to improve my swimming technique. There is something mechanically wrong about what I am doing. The guys at the head of the pack were doing about a 4 minute swim, while I was doing a little over 6 for 400 yards. That means the lead guys were doing 100 yards in 60 seconds, or just about two yards a second pace. That's about as fast as Stephanie, our lifeguard and babysitter, swim and that's where I need to be if I want to be competitive, even in my own age group.

To get there I'll be taking a private lesson next month from a swim coach, and maybe doing some fin work just to get my body to understand what it would be like to go that fast.

My second triathlon first was that I forgot my running shoes. So Saturday's triathlon turned into a biathlon for me as there was no way I was going to run 3.1 miles in crocs. This was a good lesson though. I'm going to put together a checklist of everything I need on race day. That will help me avoid these situations in the future.

That being said, my biathlon went really well. I was kicking ass on the swim and certainly on the bike. Because of the way the course is laid out I was able to see the race leader and everyone ahead of me. And I'm not embarrassed to have been beaten by any of them.

What I can say now is that to really compete in one of these things, even at this "Tri For Fun" level, I would have to do everything about 60-!00% faster than I am now. I can beat all of the casual competitors at this point. But to compete against the real triathletes I'm going to have to step it up.