I TRIed It.....and Loved It!

I completed my first "triathalon" on Sunday!  The indoor triathalon at the gym.  It consists of a 10 minute swim, 30 minute bike and 20 minute run.  And you earn points based on distance covered during those times.

I have been taking swim lessons for this, for a month.  I wanted to learn how to swim freestyle with my head in the water.  I did finally learn how to do it, although I still really need to work on it.  I just can't get the breathing down yet.  It is very frustrating but I know I need to just keep practicing and I will eventually get it.  But as of right now I don't really care for it.  But I think I will as I get it.

So it was the part I was dreading the most at the tri.  The worse part was you had to share a lane with someone and since my plan included a lot of backstroke (a stroke that is much easier for me) I was worried I would smack them.  But then I remembered my friend Niki was signing up for the tri as well I didn't feel as bad smacking her. :)  She will forgive me.  Another good thing was it was very relaxed and you could stop anywhere in the pool, walk the length of the pool, or just stand there if you wanted to, as long as you got in the water.  So I wasn't too anxious about it, just glad it was first b/c I just wanted to get it over with.

So Niki and I met up at the gym at 7:30am.  We checked in (got a really nice performance tee), set up our transition clothes, and headed to the pool.  There was one wave ahead of us and they were already in the water.  I expected to see at least one person walking, standing, something, but they were all swimming, really well. Oh well....I will just do the best I can.  The plan was to do 4 lengths freestyle and the rest back.

And we were off....the swimming was as hard as I figured it would be.  I have a lot of work to do on swimming.  My goal was to complete at least 10 lengths, and that is exactly how many I did.  Although I didn't make 4 lengths freestyle, just two.  I couldn't handle all of the turbulance and swimming right next to Niki.  So I just swam backstroke for the rest of it and only hit Niki twice, on the last two lengths.  I said "sorry"! :)

I was very glad to get out of the pool and change for the bike riding.  We headed up to the cycle room and when we walked in the guy said we have 30 seconds to start.  Oops....apparenlty we took a little long changing.  We jumped on, I was able to at least adjust the seat before getting on, but the handle bars wasn't high enough.  The volunteer was nice enough to come raise it for me and then push my seat forward, as I stood up and pedaled.  I averaged about 29 mph and kicked it up a little higher in the last 10 minutes.  I ended up going 14.4 miles, higher than I had been doing so I was happy with that. Best thing was my legs weren't even jiggly afterward, I was ready for the run.

I definitely did the best in the run, shocker, right?  I ran at about a 10min/mile for 10 minutes raised it to 9min/mile for about 5 min and then went to about a 7:45min/mile for the last 5 minutes (that is 8.0 on the treadmill).  It felt so great to run that fast.  My legs weren't bothering me at all.

Afterwards Niki and I stretched out and headed home, glad that we did it.  We both really enjoyed it and we are looking forward to the Super Sprint Tri in May.  I just have to conquer my fear of swimming in lake water to do that.

Oh.....this just in.  As I was finishing this up I received the results from the tri.  I tied for 6th place out of 10, in my category.  23rd out of 32 overall.  :)  The swimming killed me.  I have pretty competitive times in the running and biking. Oh well I will keep working on it.

Now on to Warrior Dash in two weeks!  And hopefully a Half Marathon in 3 weeks!