A Triathlon Turned Run-Bike-Run

It’s been a month now. I haven’t wanted to write about the triathlon. First of all the water quality at Shady Oak Lake deteriorated right before the race so the swim portion was cancelled. I was disappointed and also relieved. Although my swimming has really improved I’m terrible in open water. And this race turned out to be just very strange. It was supposed to be just for fun, and you could choose your distance as you went. Because everyone was running and biking different distances there were no Age Group awards, no podiums, no way to tell how you did against the other people in the race.

I had decided early on that I was going to do the longest distances for each component. So I ran 5k, biked 12 miles, and then ran 1.5 miles. Who knows how many other people did that, but I know for sure that none of the slower people like me made that choice.

I was apprehensive about the logistics of a tri, even without the swim. Just managing two different disciplines at the same time felt overwhelming, thank goodness I didn’t have to deal with three! But I had done a lot of reading and Facebooking about tris so I knew what to expect.

I got there plenty early, found the place in the transition area where I was supposed to rack my bike, and the helpful volunteers showed me how; I would have never figured it out otherwise! There's a bar, and you hang your bike from the seat post. If there was an incorrect way to do this I would have found it without their help! 

Running, shoes, hat, water, gel, sunglasses, phone - check. We started in waves of about 50 people (about 400 people total), in order by when we registered. I was in the second group, and as it turns out it’s a good thing. Because I had mainly focused on swimming and biking and really hadn’t run much at all this summer, my running was crap. Getting covid a couple of weeks ago didn’t help either. I was really slow, even for me. 

But the biking portion went better. I averaged around 13 mph, same as I did in the 65 mile Tour de Tonka, which is good for me, but very slow for a race. During the biking portion I started to realize just how slow. You could do anything from 1 to 3 4 mile loops. I gradually realized that almost no one as slow as me did the full 12 miles. By the time I got off the bike there were only a couple of people behind me.

You could decide at that point to just run over the finish line and call it a day. That’s what I probably should have done but no, I had told myself I was going to do the final 1.5 miles so I did. There was no one, and I mean NO ONE on that course at the end! The water station was closed, the volunteers pointing the way were gone. When I got to the final stretch I wondered if the finish line would still be up! There were a few volunteers walking to the finish area and they saw me jogging along. One of them ran ahead yelling, “One more! One more!” Haha. People lined the finish shoot and cheered for me! I was kind of embarrassed, and also laughing at the absurdity of it all. I had finally managed to come in Dead Fucking Last in a race. 

As time goes by, and I’ve had a little time to think about it I think triathlons are just not my thing. I like to run. I like to bike, a lot. I’m proud of myself for learning to swim better, but I think I will stick to pool swimming from now on. But tris? No. I can’t see my swimming getting that much better. Getting faster on the bike probably means getting a road bike.  I can run ok for my age but to be halfway decent means focusing on it, and I just don’t have the time or energy to devote to doing 3 sports well.

So one and done. That’s ok. I’m running the TCM 10 mile race on Sunday. I’ll focus mainly on running for now and use biking, swimming, pilates and strength training as cross training.  I'm starting to plan my fitness goals for next year. I think it's going to be a year of half marathons. That's a hard distance for me, but not as all-consuming or depleting as full marathons. I've signed up for the Gary Borkland Half in Duluth next June already and I'll probably add Goldy's Run and a few others to that as well. And maybe another distance bike ride too. Could I do the 70 miler in Mankato next fall? Will I get a road bike next spring? Stay tuned!

Swimming

Ever since I got my new bike, almost 2 years ago, I’ve been intrigued by trying to do a triathlon. There are a lot of reasons it’s a good idea for me, and one big reason it’s not. As an older athlete, using a variety of muscles is a great way to stay in shape and avoid injury. Triathlons end up using your whole body, so they definitely check that box. Triathlons also require a lot more planning and strategy than just a plain road race. That’s good for my aging brain, if a little intimidating. I like new challenges, and triathlons definitely check that box!

HOWEVER, and this is a big one, when I first started toying with this idea seriously last summer, I quickly discovered that my swimming was abysmal. I can swim, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sure if I ever took lessons beyond when I was a little kid. I can do the crawl, but it left me breathless, gasping for air, and a little panic-stricken at the end of a lap!

I first started going to the pool last August. When I first started I could barely swim a lap (25 yards) using the crawl, so I did a lot of breaststroke. I tried to do the backstroke but I flat out sunk when I did! I bought a kick board and tried practicing with that, but I had hardly any power in my kick and I was so slow I felt like I might be going backwards!

Something had to change if I was going to make this idea a reality. I’m planning on doing a sprint Tri: 600 yard swim (in a lake), 15 mile bike ride, 5k run. The tri that I settled on is beginner friendly, no time cut off, and it’s at the end of the summer (Labor Day weekend) so the water will be warm enough that I won’t need a wetsuit so that’s one less complication to deal with. 

I started researching different swim training options. Anything I found in person was either for adults that need to learn to swim, or were for coaching and too expensive. I started researching online. I looked at 3 different options. The first one was TriDot. It’s very popular but I found it overwhelming and it was more for training people that already can swim well. There’s another program called Effortless Swimming, and there’s a third one called Total Immersion (I’m sure there are others but these are the ones I looked at). I settled on Total Immersion. I could purchase an online course for $50 that included an ebook, eworkbook, and videos.

I did the complete course before I started swimming laps again. Basically it completely broke down the freestyle stroke method into small pieces and I practiced each piece until I felt confident that I was doing it correctly and then followed the directions for putting them all together.

By March I was swimming laps again. What a difference! I could swim lap after lap without feeling tired or gasping for air!

I’m slowly working my way up now to increasing the amount of time I can swim continuously. I’m up to 200 yards, which would have been impossible last year. It won’t be long before I’ll need to start swimming in open water, which from everything I’ve read will be another challenge.

Besides swimming I still need to run and bike, although I’m not covering big distances right now. However I can’t be satisfied with training for just one activity, can I? I’m doing a couple long bike rides in July, and at the beginning of October I’m going to run the TCM 10 Mile race, that was cancelled last year. 

The biggest limitation that I feel like age puts on me now is that I get more tired than I used to. For example, I worked in the yard this morning, pulling weeds and doing some pruning. I was out there most of the morning and now I’m trashed, but I’m supposed to do a short bike ride this afternoon. It’s only 35 minutes, maybe 6-7 miles, and it will probably feel good, but it’s going to take some motivation to get me out there. I better start working on that!