Triathlon #1(Bear Lake Brawl):
All the articles I've read about doing a triathlon talk about all the training necessary to participate. That's where this blog differs. I did nothing to prepare....yet still I conquered!
Ok...so I may have had a little training, but not the three months of daily training that I read about on the tri websites. I enjoy mountain biking. This summer I've usually rode between 2 to 4 trails a week. The distances have always varied...anywhere from 2 miles up to 40 miles. It all came down to how much time I had and how good I was feeling.
My sister has been home for the summer (she's a P.E. teacher in Vegas), and was talking about doing a 50 mile bike race. It sounded like fun so we both were planning on doing it....even though neither one of us did any hardcore training. That ended up falling through and that's when we decided to do a triathlon. Neither one of us had ever done a tri and it sounded like fun. I looked up on the Internet and found there was one taking place in Bear Lake in about 2 weeks. Not much time to train but we had the desire....so we signed up. The following 2 weeks we went on a few runs and decided to do a shortened mock tri on the upcoming Saturday before the real deal. We would bike the 13 miles then run 4.
We did the mock tri and felt pretty good about it. I think it took us around 1 hour 20 minutes. Not bad for us....we were still alive and felt like we could do the swim in addition to it.
The Swim (1/2 Mile)
Really the only thing that we literally did zero training for was the swimming section.
The morning came and the tri started with the swimming. I now know why they put swimming first: so nobody drowns! It took me around 20 minutes to swim a 1/2 mile. Wow. That part was harder than I thought. I quickly discovered that I'm not a strong swimmer. Since I'm one of the the only ones that read this, I can admit that I spent a whole lot of time on my back doing the elementary backstroke.
The Bike (12 mile)
The biking section was my favorite part. My legs were burning, but I didn't feel like I was going to kill over and die. Plus I passed quite a few people...which made me feel good. Especially after doing so bad on the swim. The whole section was relatively flat which made for a good ride.
The Run (3 mile)
I'll be the first to say it. I hate to run. Maybe my mind will change in the future, but for now I despise it. I dropped my bike off in the transition area and started jogging. My first thoughts after those couple of strides was: "I'm already super tired...can I really run for another 3 miles?" After I got over the feeling of being tired, I got into a rhythm running and just kept with it. When going on a couple runs the week before my sister told me not to stop while running or I'd cramp up....so I kept running and it worked pretty good. This section was also pretty flat.
All the articles I've read about doing a triathlon talk about all the training necessary to participate. That's where this blog differs. I did nothing to prepare....yet still I conquered!
Ok...so I may have had a little training, but not the three months of daily training that I read about on the tri websites. I enjoy mountain biking. This summer I've usually rode between 2 to 4 trails a week. The distances have always varied...anywhere from 2 miles up to 40 miles. It all came down to how much time I had and how good I was feeling.
My sister has been home for the summer (she's a P.E. teacher in Vegas), and was talking about doing a 50 mile bike race. It sounded like fun so we both were planning on doing it....even though neither one of us did any hardcore training. That ended up falling through and that's when we decided to do a triathlon. Neither one of us had ever done a tri and it sounded like fun. I looked up on the Internet and found there was one taking place in Bear Lake in about 2 weeks. Not much time to train but we had the desire....so we signed up. The following 2 weeks we went on a few runs and decided to do a shortened mock tri on the upcoming Saturday before the real deal. We would bike the 13 miles then run 4.
We did the mock tri and felt pretty good about it. I think it took us around 1 hour 20 minutes. Not bad for us....we were still alive and felt like we could do the swim in addition to it.
The Swim (1/2 Mile)
Really the only thing that we literally did zero training for was the swimming section.
The morning came and the tri started with the swimming. I now know why they put swimming first: so nobody drowns! It took me around 20 minutes to swim a 1/2 mile. Wow. That part was harder than I thought. I quickly discovered that I'm not a strong swimmer. Since I'm one of the the only ones that read this, I can admit that I spent a whole lot of time on my back doing the elementary backstroke.
The Bike (12 mile)
The biking section was my favorite part. My legs were burning, but I didn't feel like I was going to kill over and die. Plus I passed quite a few people...which made me feel good. Especially after doing so bad on the swim. The whole section was relatively flat which made for a good ride.
The Run (3 mile)
I'll be the first to say it. I hate to run. Maybe my mind will change in the future, but for now I despise it. I dropped my bike off in the transition area and started jogging. My first thoughts after those couple of strides was: "I'm already super tired...can I really run for another 3 miles?" After I got over the feeling of being tired, I got into a rhythm running and just kept with it. When going on a couple runs the week before my sister told me not to stop while running or I'd cramp up....so I kept running and it worked pretty good. This section was also pretty flat.
My 2nd Triathlon Experience (Rush Triathlon):
Having done 1 triathlon before (The Bear Lake Brawl...6/30/07), I had a general idea what I was getting myself into. My training was pretty laid back, but I was glad just to be doing some type of training. I did better on going on longer bike rides and getting out to run, but I still did nothing for the swimming section.
Swimming: (1/2 Mile)
Really the only difference between this time and last time was that I knew what I was getting into. It didn't change the difficulty of it at all...I just didn't feel as nervous the second time around. I may have swam slightly faster this time around but I couldn't tell because the time wasn't recorded on the charts. This time as I was exiting the water I found my nephew who hadn't been out of the water very long and he was throwing up by his bike. After throwing up he kept on going and eventually placed overall 1st place in his age category. Pretty cool.
The Biking: (13.8 Mile)
The biking this time was different. a little longer and much more challenging on the terrain. There was one long hill right at the beginning then rolling hills after that. The hills seemed to hinder any progress I made on the flats. I'd pass bikers on the flat stretches and then I'd get passed going up and going down. As a side note which I failed to mention in the first tri entry....I rode my Mountain bike in both tri's since I don't own a road bike. This slowed my down quite a bit.
The Run: (3.1 Mile)
Like I said before....I hate to run. I learned a huge lesson on this run: REVIEW YOU TRAIL MAPS BEFORE YOU RACE. I ended up running an extra 1/4 mile because there was a section that crossed paths of the sprint runners and Olympic runners...there were no people around to tell me I turned the wrong way.
This trail was also very difficult. There was a massive hill climb that seemed to take forever. Keeping true to the no stopping rule my sister told me about I passed a lot of people on the hill even though I was going slower that a turtle! I didn't see one person that was running or jogging up the hill. They had all stopped and were walking up the hill. Very hard hill.
Good times....Good times!
Having done 1 triathlon before (The Bear Lake Brawl...6/30/07), I had a general idea what I was getting myself into. My training was pretty laid back, but I was glad just to be doing some type of training. I did better on going on longer bike rides and getting out to run, but I still did nothing for the swimming section.
Swimming: (1/2 Mile)
Really the only difference between this time and last time was that I knew what I was getting into. It didn't change the difficulty of it at all...I just didn't feel as nervous the second time around. I may have swam slightly faster this time around but I couldn't tell because the time wasn't recorded on the charts. This time as I was exiting the water I found my nephew who hadn't been out of the water very long and he was throwing up by his bike. After throwing up he kept on going and eventually placed overall 1st place in his age category. Pretty cool.
The Biking: (13.8 Mile)
The biking this time was different. a little longer and much more challenging on the terrain. There was one long hill right at the beginning then rolling hills after that. The hills seemed to hinder any progress I made on the flats. I'd pass bikers on the flat stretches and then I'd get passed going up and going down. As a side note which I failed to mention in the first tri entry....I rode my Mountain bike in both tri's since I don't own a road bike. This slowed my down quite a bit.
The Run: (3.1 Mile)
Like I said before....I hate to run. I learned a huge lesson on this run: REVIEW YOU TRAIL MAPS BEFORE YOU RACE. I ended up running an extra 1/4 mile because there was a section that crossed paths of the sprint runners and Olympic runners...there were no people around to tell me I turned the wrong way.
This trail was also very difficult. There was a massive hill climb that seemed to take forever. Keeping true to the no stopping rule my sister told me about I passed a lot of people on the hill even though I was going slower that a turtle! I didn't see one person that was running or jogging up the hill. They had all stopped and were walking up the hill. Very hard hill.
Good times....Good times!
