I Tried a Tri

For many years now I've been contemplating a triathlon and every time I remember how much I dislike cycling, I forget about it. Well this time was different. "No time like the present", "I'm not getting any younger", I signed up a month before my "local" triathlon - Cranberry Trifest. They have a sprint and Olympic distance - I'm fit - I run every day and swim just about every day in the summer; I wanted the challenge, so I picked the Olympic.

The majority of any triathlon is the bike, and now the realization starting setting in. Not so much the distance - I'm fit, I could muscle through the bike. Not so much the discomfort - I could ignore my flat butt, sit-bones pain for an hour and a half. No, the biggest issue with the bike on this - or any triathlon for me ... I don't own a bike.

That's not exactly true, I own a bike - a "vintage" Trek mountain bike ... from 1995. What with its hardtail frame, late 90's geometry and no front suspension it might as well be a road bike; it even has presta valves, though on ridculously knobby, wide off-road tires. I had to practice somehow, so I took it for a 10 mile road ride around town with some respectable hills sprinkled in and averaged 15 mph and an average heart rate at the top of my Zone 2. That was "OK" if I "had" to do it, but a proper road bike would be much better. Thank goodness my wife has friends - so after a quick social post, I had half a dozen bike borrow offers and soon a shiny Cannondale proper road bike was delivered to my house. Now it wasn't a TT or triathlon-specific bike, it had only a single frame bottle cage, no aero bars and regular (i.e., not clipless) pedals, but a 21-mile ride at 17.5 mph and same average heart rate boosted my confidence. I swapped a second bottle cage from my mountain bike onto the open frame mount - so now I'd have two, and I added some cheap pedal straps from Amazon. One more ride of 15 miles followed immediatly by a 5k run (sub 8 min/mi in Zone 2) the weekend before the tri and I figured that was all the bike training I needed - or realistically would get!

I don't want this to sound like a "I did a triathlon on no training" kind of thing, but I really didn't do any triathlon-specific training save for that last "bike-to-run" session. I still kept my running every day streak going and I was swimming 10-25 minutes (0.25 - 0.75) miles every other day as per usual in the summer. The swimming was mostly pool swimming in our in-ground, salt water pool, but I never push off to help maximize actual swimming distance and I did over a mile of open water ocean swimming in Italy this summer. I'm also no stranger to open water ocean swimming in a wetsuit and some pretty harsh wave, swell and chop conditions. This triathlon swim was going to be in a pond. How bad could it be?

Swim

Water temps in the pond were measured at 77 degrees, so it was wetsuit legal. But during swimming practice, I just dipped my toes in and it felt like bathwater (maybe because air temps were low 70's). So while most pulled their wetsuits on, I kept mine stowed in my bag, resolved to just swimming in my jammers (which were going to double as my bike shorts and triple as my running shorts) and tried to figure out this swim cap thing. I have short hair, no need for a swim cap to keep it managed. I understand it's for safety (lifeguard visuals in a mass of rotating arms and chop) but I never wear one, ever. I don't even own one - no need. To say it was awkward would be an understatement. When I hit the water and took the first few strokes, everything felt off. Breathing, head position, feel of the water ... I didn't know what was wrong, but something was. I experimented by pulling the sides of the cap up over my ears - not that I enjoy swimmers ear, but the utter lack of any "head" sensations or feedback from this latex cap was utterly disconcerting.

I tried pulling off my nose clip and that was atrocious. Years of running have taught me to calm and control my breathing to keep heart rate in check during vigorous exercise. In through the nose, out through the mouth - which is the exact opposite advice for swimming; in through the mouth, out through the nose. Every once in a while as if on autopilot, I will take a breath through the nose and (involuntarily) flush my sinuses with salt water spritz. To combat, I've taken to swimming with a face mask - the same cheap, light, entry level face mask I bought 25+ years ago for SCUBA lessons, the same face mask I use snorkeling throughout our travels and the same face mask I swim with every day. The nose cover acts as a one-way valve, not allowing me to breath in, but I can breath out and even the cheap lenses do not fog with occasional nose exhales in the mask. I wasn't sure of the effectiveness of this setup in a crowd - or the "legality" of a face mask in triathlon (USA Triathlon doesn't seem to exclude them specifically), so I was praticing with goggles and a nose clip which was manageable - though the goggles fogged and the nose clip prevented nose exhaling. I probably should have just used the mask.

One thing about fresh water versus salt water is you are more buoyant in salt water. While the wetsuit would have helped with this, it would have created far more problems - like overheating and shoulder fatigue from my cheap, not-swim-specific, full-body wetsuit. Also, my salt water pool has far less salinity than ocean water so I'm not sure the buoyancy thing was a factor. What was a factor regarding fresh water versus the salt water was the taste. When swimming, you inevitably get water in your mouth and when it's salt water or laced with chlorine, your brain gets the (harsh) feedback it needs to spit it out and continue on. When the pond water found its way into my mouth, the first instinct was to swallow it. I had to conjure thoughts of Giardia and other intestinal parasites to correct the behavior and those images were not helpful with the last big issue ...

... the people! For safety, you're never supposed to swim alone, but let's face it, I have no friends that swim as much or would be willing to venture into open water with me - so my swimming is always solo. Pack 200+ people into a small pond, some without open water experience and it gets a bit uncomfortable. I'm no professional, but I can sight in open water and while my track isn't perfect like the lane lines in a pool, I stay pretty oriented on where I'm going. The number of times I bumped into someone's side swiming across my path or someone swimmed into my side trying to swim through me was insane. Some people spent a lot of time zig-zagging and I felt I spent a lot of time resetting instead of maintaining a consistent (albeit slow) pace.

All this to say I underperformed on the swim. The goal for 1.2km (0.9 miles) was 30 minutes and I finished in 31. Not way off the mark, but I think I could have done under 30 minutes if I was more comfortable in the situation. And I do mean "situation" and not "water" in general. It's clear I need fresh water open water swim practice as open water ocean swimming didn't translate like I thought it would. It's also clear "nothing new on race day" - I should have practiced with a swim cap and just used my face mask for the race. But the biggest issue that I'm not sure how to fix is swimming in a crowd. Circle swimming lanes at the gym won't fix this. I think it's really just about getting more race experience.

Bike

The swim to bike transition involved a short run from the pond to the bike corral. Having never done a triathlon transition before I had no idea what to expect in terms of time it would take. Because my bike didn't have clipless pedals, I didn't have bike shoes, so swim to bike transition had me putting on my socks and running shoes after drying my feet. They would just slip into the pedal straps and save time later on the second transition. I then put on my running singlet (I don't own a tri-suit or bicycling shirt) and helmet. I stashed a gel under the spandex of my jammers on each leg, grabbed my bike and headed out. I was efficient and paused to make sure I didn't forget anything. It felt painfully long, but turns out I was in the top third fastest transition 1 for my age group.

I got up to speed quickly but the first mile or so has many turns and street crossings to set us up for a long straight stretch and through the fits and starts of braking and accelerating, I was passing a few people but was also watching fit young age-groupers pass me on TT-bikes tucked in with full aero gear at what seemed like a leisurely pedaling pace. The route was not closed to traffic so while police blocked intersections for us to fly through, cars would approach and pass while we rode on the straight streets. Not sure what I was doing having never ridden in a group on roads and trying to follow triathlon rules about drafting and passing and staying on the right while trying to avoid rural road shoulder obstables and potholes, I gave it my best. Accelerating and tucking the downhills, not blowing up the uphills and riding pretty consistently on the flats. I felt like I passed as many people that had passed me as the slow ones faded and the fast movers filtered forward. To complicate it, the sprint bike course is the same as the Olympic bike course for the first and last third so in a group of cyclists, you never know if the sprint distance racers are the ones flying by or if I'm just rubbish and the few Olympic course athletes still behind me were just overtaking.

Come to find out, it was most likely the former. I surprisingly overperformed on the bike, riding the 42.2km (26.2 miles) in just under 1 hour 27 minutes (the goal was 1:30) at 18.0 mph and kept an average heart rate in Zone 2. So it looks like my three "grueling" training rides were enough. Coming off my dismal swim performance, I had actaully moved up 44 spots overall during the bike leg!

Run

Since I already had my running shoes on, the bike to run transition was quick; rack the bike, grab my bib number belt and go. I did drop off the two empty gel packets from my shorts' legs and downed another before heading out. That transition felt fast, and indeed it was; it was the fastest transition 2 in my age group and the 11th fastest of the 200+ competitors overall!

Running is my bread and butter. I told everyone that asked about my triathlon leading into it that the run would be the easy part. What about being tired from the swim? What about your legs feeling like bricks after the bike? What about your back and hamstrings being sore from holding the cycling position for over an hour? Nothing. I didn't care about those things; they would not be a factor ...

... and I was so very right. Not to say there wasn't discomfort, but I've run ultra marathons, I know discomfort when running. If this was just a 10km run race (not the swim and bike before hand), I would have podiumed my age-group. 44:35 for a 10km at 7:11 min/mi pace. Certainly not my fastest, but right at the 45 minute prediction.

Results

So how did I do? My expectation was 30 minute swim, 1 hour 30 minute bike and 45 minute run with 10 minutes of transitions and an overall time just under 3 hours. The stretch goal was 2 hours 45 minutes. I ended in 2 hours 47 minutes. Middle of the road overall, gender and age group. It was fun and I may do it again. I have definitely not been bitten by the triathlon bug - no need for a full distance IRONMAN, no need to accumulate hyper-specific versions of goggles, wetsuits, or god-forbid - bicycles! Maybe another Olympic distance, maybe a sprint - focusing on an ocean swim (and still borrowing a bike).

Seems my running fitness translated. Certainly not to competitive age group racing, but my assumptions going in - acknowledged lack of bike training, not having the proper "kit", yet still being able to exceed my goal (under 3 hours) and come very close to the stretch validate that, though "I'm not getting any younger", "you can teach an old dog new tricks".