Indoor Triathlon March 8th

I did a nearly spontaneous triathlon last weekend. That’s a strange thing, but it’s pretty much true. Sure, we had talked about it a little bit. But when you dress up as a roller derby team to do a trivia bee, a triathlon starts to seem easy-peasy, so Teacher Runner, Snarky Girl and I decided to give it a whirl.

I had to get cleared from PT Coach for the bike portion because I hadn’t been on a spin bike since mid-January. But, she gave it the thumbs up so it was full speed ahead. In addition to me and Teacher Runner and Snarky Girl, Mr. Snarky Girl wanted to get in on the fun. And Swifty also decided to do it!

We started texting back and forth already around 7am. Teacher Runner pointed out that triathlons require a lot of gear. Apparently Mr. Snarky Girl wondered what she was talking about, which would come back to haunt him later when he showed up with no workout shorts and had to do the bike and the elliptical in his dress pants!

By 8:15 we were lined up on the pool deck, very excited. The way they work this indoor triathlon is that two lanes are reserved and people start swimming pretty much as soon as they get there. Two swimmers per lane at a time, 450 yards (18 laps). There weren’t many lap swimmers on Sunday so a lane was free and there was a mess of triathletes so Kristin set us up for six of us to start at once. Cool! I had never done a swimming race before!

Snarky Girl, Teacher Runner and I ready to swim. Note leftover Killer Bees tattoos!

  Teacher Runner ready to kick butt in the pool!!

   Mr. Snarky Girl and Snarky Girl – next year’s Christmas card photo?

I had no idea what to expect so I just tried to swim with all the technique I’ve been trying to learn over the past couple of months. I tried not to panic and I was mostly successful. Primary goal achieved! I could see Teacher Runner really booking out of the corner of my eye. I’m so stinking proud of her! And I could see Snarky Girl in my lane struggling with some kind of technical difficulty, but I figured if she were actually drowning, the lifeguard would save her. Turns out her goggles were somehow dumping water into her mouth. Not ideal!

I tried to swim steadily and not go crazy with trying to be fast. This was only the first event and I had no idea how I would feel once it was done. I counted off the laps. Ten laps done, just eight more. Fourteen laps done, just four more. Don’t stop. Also, don’t switch to breaststroke! Just keep going. Suddenly only two laps to go! That is just down and back, no problem! I finished in 8:32! At first I was surprised that it was slower than my time trial a week or so ago, but then I remembered that I had just done 450 yards, not 400. So, yeah, an extra 50 yards takes some time. Teacher Runner finished in 6:36, which was not only the fastest time last Sunday, but the fastest time in the whole indoor triathlon season! Once all my friends were finished, we headed to the showers to clean up a bit and get changed. Yes, “transition” in this triathlon includes the chance to rinse the chlorine off. Not bad!

Next up was the spin bike portion. I was most nervous about this leg because I didn’t know how my back was going to feel. I let Kristin, the organizer, know what was going on and she helped me get the bike adjusted. I let her know if I stopped, it would mean my back couldn’t handle it. Then she told us our “gear assignments”. Men over 150 pounds had to put their bike in a particular gear. Men under 150 pounds got an easier gear. Same with women. Score! Thanks to Tough Guy Trainer, I’ve been solidly under 150 for at least a month.

Snarky Girl, ready to ride!

Mr. Snarky Girl. Note dress pants. Also, pre-victory smile. The man knows his way around a bicycle.

Teacher Runner and I. She doesn’t know I’m about to start drafting off her. Or whatever you call it on a spin bike.

This was the only event that we started together. Kristin started the music, counted us down, said go, and off we went. When Early Bird teaches spin class, there’s some variation. A song spent going up hill or intervals or whatever. This was just the whole way in one gear. At least we had music and every now and then Kristin checked in to be sure everyone was ok. Mr. Snarky Girl on my left was tearing up the “road” on his bike. Teacher Runner was to my right and I decided to lock onto her by peeking at her display. I don’t know if that is cheating or not, but I figured in an actual race you might try to pass someone so maybe this wasn’t so different. So, I just kept trying to stay “ahead” of her, meaning, I had clicked off more miles on my display than she had on hers. Don’t kill me Teacher Runner! Mr. Snarky Girl finished first and he was pretty psyched. Swifty finished second, and as first woman. Her legs were flying around those pedals. I finished in 29:11 and felt pretty good.

After spinning, we headed to the fitness center. Ooooo, elliptical machines are upstairs! That is an evil trick, mid-triathlon! I made Snarky Girl come up to take pictures, ha ha ha! Mr. Snarky Girl really can’t run – meaning, his Achilles flares up whenever he tries. So, he had to come up to the second floor too and we both got set up on the elliptical. Unlike Snarky Girl, Mr. Snarky Girl isn’t a talker so I had my iPod ready. I have practically no experience on the elliptical. PT Coach told me to try to keep the strides per minute at 200 and I had one done one workout trying to do that. This time, I could hardly get above 185 for the first mile, but then I was able to get up to around 195.

The elliptical crew

I decided since this was a race, I was allowed to listen to my race day play list. I also decided I was only allowed to look at the distance elapsed every five minutes. After the first five minutes, I had gone .62 miles or so and I knew if I stayed at that pace, I could finish in under 30 minutes. I thought about my sub 30 friends. I also thought about having to post a time like 30:11 or something and decided I had better bust my ass. NOT LITERALLY since I already did that. I was tired and my legs were a little wobbly, but my biggest issue with the elliptical was still pretty much boredom. I thought about some of my friends in sub 30 who have been injured for awhile and I thought about Coach Cowboy and I just leaned on it. At 25 minutes, I checked distance elapsed and it said 2.80! Just .3 miles to go! I finished in 27:34! Well under 30 minutes!

Happy after surviving first tri!

Post-triathlon we had a lot of high fives all the way around. Future outdoor triathletes???!!!!