My First Triathlon!

After only two months of training, I found myself back at the lagoon in Redwood Shores this Sunday preparing to attempt a sprint distance triathlon. This was a half-mile swim followed by a 15 mile bike ride followed by a 3 mile run. Each part by itself seemed simple enough, but since I'd never done it before, I found myself falling back on my defense mechanism of focusing only what was in front of me...in this case getting ready for the race.

As I was doing that, Albie showed up to watch us start. Albie has been on several run teams and is thinking about getting involved with one of the triathlon events (do it!!). He seemed to be surprised to see how much pre-race preparation there was. Just in my small transition area, I laid out my wetsuit, goggles, swim cap, body glide, and towel for swimming; bike, bike shoes, socks, shorts, shirt, helmet, gloves, sunglasses, and sunscreen for biking; and shoes for the run.

Fortunately, Jesus (one of the coaches) saw me getting into my wetsuit and helped me put it on correctly. It seemed pretty simple to me - put yourself inside and zip it up. Not quite. With Jesus' help, I realized that I hadn't pulled it up nearly enough, which was resulting in my shoulder rotation being limited by my suit. I could immediately tell the difference, and realized why last time I had found it so hard to move my arms in the water and truly relax.

With my wetsuit on correctly, the swim was a breeze. Although I was the last one out of the water, I was relaxed the entire time. In fact, I felt as if I could have swam another half mile! This feeling is something I've been striving for in my swimming, so I was very excited to feel so comfortable. When I came up onto land, I felt like I had achieved something significant even before starting the other segments.

Two of the coaches came up to me and helped me take off my wetsuit. I wasn't expecting that, but evidently there are people to help you during the transitions of these races. I got into my bike gear relatively quickly and started on my ride. Although I felt good, I kept it at a moderate pace throughout the ride. My legs were feeling a bit tired as I started the run, but I had no issues finishing up the race.

I felt great about the entire experience. My first triathlon! It was something I'd wanted to do for a long time, but thought was out of reach because of my poor swimming. Now I have this small one under my belt and have a little confidence. The next milestone is an Olympic-distance triathlon (double this distance) in San Francisco sometime in January. Those waters will be a little colder and rougher, so it promises to be an interesting experience.

How's Training?

Last night, I had some friends over for dinner. Chirag asked me how my training was going - something I got asked a lot over the holidays. The funny thing is that I haven't figured out how to answer it yet.

On one hand, I'm training consistently and seeing small signs of improvement. One of the things I've had problems with is my endurance in the pool. So this morning, I slowed down my stroke a lot and tried to stay relaxed, almost meditative. Over the course 30-minutes, my heart rate never got very high - something that's always been a limitation for me. I don't think that pace would work for me in a race, but it's good to know that it is possible to actually feel pretty comfortable. On a related note, the main reason for my improvement in the pool is the Total Immersion swimming DVD, which I credit for rebuilding my poor technique from the ground up. I still have a long way to go, but this was a nice milestone.

I ran at the track yesterday, trying to maintain a slower, comfortable pace over 5+ miles -something I felt I could maintain over a lot of miles. I wound up running around a 8:20 mile. I didn't think much of that until I checked to see what this was equivalent to in marathon terms. That would be a 3 hour, 38 minute marathon. I've run a couple marathons before, and that's almost an hour faster than my fastest time, so I was pretty excited about that.

Having written all this, there are also reasons why I'm not sure my training is actually going that well. For one thing, my body constantly feels beaten up. Normally when I do some sort of physical activity, my body eventually adjusts to it. Not this time. My legs and back constantly feel sore and tight. I tell myself that this a sign of getting stronger, but I definitely am not feeling strong right now. I feel like I need a week-long rest to recover from all of this. Also, although I've been training consistently, I'm still not putting in enough miles - running, swimming, or biking. How can I be working so hard and still be falling behind for an event that's 8 months away?