YWCA Women's Triathlon Race Recap

My first triathlon is in the books and it was a great experience!  I have a lot to say about the experience (warning - long post to follow!) but will start off with the night before.  I biked over to Phil's in the afternoon and we stayed in that evening and made one of my favorite pasta dishes which is chicken with a white wine sauce (with GF pasta, of course).  It was really good!

After dinner, I laid out everything that I was planning to bring to the race.  There is so much to remember so I am glad I had made a list last week!  I got everything to fit in my bag, though, so that is good!

After that we watched a documentary about how Champagne is made and I obsessively checked the weather forecast.  It was not looking good and the race director had sent out an email saying that the race may be cancelled if there was lightening so I was kind of freaking out a bit.

Luckily I woke up to overcast skies but no rain on Sunday morning!  I was so relieved!  My friend Courtney picked me up which saved me from having to bike to the race.  It was only about 3 miles away but I didn't need to bike any extra miles that morning!

We got to the transition area, got set up and took some pre-race photos.  Courtney is the person that talked me into doing this race as she's done it twice and loved it. However, she is 7 months pregnant so instead of doing the full race, she did the swim leg of the relay.

I was in one of the later waves so had a lot of downtime between when they closed the transition area and lined us up but it went by fairly fast.  The first wave started at 8 am and my wave started around 8:39.  I was soooo ready to start and just have the swim behind me as I was very nervous about the swim since it's my weakest sport.  From here on out, I'll break down the race by sport:

Swim:  500 yards. Goal = 15 minutes; Actual = 12:40.  The swim actually went better than I was expecting.  It's definitely the weakest of the three sports for me but it went better than I thought it would.  One thing that helped is that it wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be.  When they released the waves, they had 4-5 swimmers start at a time, with 3-4 seconds in between sets of swimmers which meant that the swimmers were way more spaced out.  I was expecting to be kicked and hit and swam into but I only had one little collision.  That said, I was soooo happy when the swim part was over!

Courtney snapped this shot of me running out of the water to the transition area.

T1:  2:14.  The first transition took the most time as I had to put on socks and shoes.  I had rolled my socks which made it easier to put them on my wet feet quickly but it's still time consuming.  I had worn a water proof watch for the swim but I threw my Garmin on at this point so I'd have an idea of how fast I was biking and running.

Bike:  15.5 miles. Goal = 1 hour; Actual = 54:41.  I was really happy with how the bike went as my pace was 17 mph which is faster than I was anticipating.  I ate an applesauce within the first mile which gave me some extra energy. Those were the only calories I had during the race.  I probably should have had another applesauce during the run but all in all I felt pretty well-fueled.  I passed quite a few people during the bike ride and pushed it pretty hard on the pace, which made me nervous that I might not have much left in the tank for the run.  In the last mile I saw Phil so that gave me some extra energy and made me smile.

T2:  1:23.  This transition went really fast as all I had to do was dock my bike, ditch my helmet and throw a hat and my race bib on (which I pinned to my spibelt).

Run:  3.1 miles. Goal = 28 minutes; Actual = 26:31.  I saw Phil right away at the start of the run and he ran with me for a little bit.  He asked me how I was feeling and I told him I was tired but he gave me some encouragement and said to remember that running is my strongest sport.  I definitely needed that pick-me-up.  My legs felt pretty tired and if I had to guess, I would have said I was running slower than 10 minute/mile pace, so I was shocked to look down and see a pace of 8:30-8:40.  I was definitely very ready to be done at this point but I powered through!  I was so in the zone that I did not hear Phil, Courtney, and Courtney's family cheering for me at the end.  Those 3.1 miles were tough so I was shocked to look at my results and see that I maintained an 8:34 pace during the run!

Courtney's husband snapped this photo of me as I was coming into the finish.  You can tell that I am pretty 'in the zone'.

Total Time:  Goal = 1:50; Actual = 1:37:28.

Officially a triathlete!

Phil and I at the finish!

I was really surprised and very pleased with my time.  I ended up finishing 246th out of 935 participants and 44th out of 155 participants in my age group, which I feel good about.  My ultimate goal for this race was to finish and have fun and I definitely accomplished that!

So the big question that always gauges how good the race experience  was is - would I do this again?  And the answer is yes!  I think I would stick to this race, though, as it's really well-organized plus I think the sprint distance is the right distance for me.  And honestly, I liked that it was women-only race.  I feel like that made for a very supportive and positive environment.  I will say that my next triathlon will be done at a time when I'm NOT training for a marathon, though!  Training for two races simultaneously is too much.  Lesson learned.

Have you ever or would you ever do a triathlon?

Cabin Bound + Goals for the Triathlon

Happy Wednesday, everyone!  Today is actually my Friday as I am heading up to my parent's lake home tonight to spend a couple of days with my brother from Chicago and his family.  I felt a little bit sheepish asking for time off during the 4th week in my new job but my boss was totally fine with it.  I have barely seen my brother and his family since last summer so I am looking forward to spending a couple of days with them.  I have to head back to Minneapolis on Friday afternoon (for Phil's pre-birthday celebration + triathlon weekend!!) so it will be a quick trip but I'll take what I can get!

Besides thinking about my time at the lake, my mind is also on the triathlon which is on Sunday morning.  In an ideal world, I would have focused more on training for the triathlon but I did the best I could on top of marathon training.  I know I am going to finish the race which is really all that matters.  My ultimate goal is to finish and have fun, so I guess you'd call that my "A" goal.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to achieve that so my "B" goal is to finish in under 2 hours. But, because I like to push myself, I've got a stretch goal of finishing in around 1:50, which would be my "C" goal.  In order to achieve that "C" goal, here's is how each of the segments would need to go:

Swim - 15 minutes.  The swim is 500 yards.  I have not timed myself during any of my swims and I always swim further than 500 yards so I have no idea what to expect for the swim.  15 minutes seems like a reasonable goal, though.  This is definitely the biggest wild card of the three sports!

Bike - 60 minutes.  The bike portion is 15.5 miles.  I've biked quite a bit this summer but I am always having to slow down for intersections and such so I have no idea how fast I can go when I don't have to start and stop.  I'm hoping that I can do the bike ride in about an hour as that's just shy of a 4 minute/mile pace which seems doable.

Run - 28 minutes.  If it was a stand alone 5k, I could certainly finish it in well under 28 minutes but considering that I'll have already swam and biked, I expect my running time to be a bit slower.  28 minutes equates to about a 9 minute mile so I might be a little bit optimistic on that as I imagine I'll be tired when I hit the run!

Overall goal - 1:50, which gives me about 7 minutes between the 2 transitions.

Will I achieve this?  Who knows.  But since I am a competitive person, I can't go into a race without a challenging goal!  If all I achieve is my "A" of finishing, then that is A-OK, too.  

This is my last post of the week as I'll be focusing on having fun with my family!  Have a great rest of the week, everyone, and send me some good race vibes on Sunday morning!  If you've done a tri, do you have any words of advice for me?

Triathlon Training: Taking a Swimming Class

Happy Tuesday!  A couple of weeks ago I talked about my triathlon training plan so today I thought I'd delve into a class I took to prepare for the swimming portion of the triathlon, which will certainly be my weakest sport of the three.

I took years of swimming lessons as a child and grew up going to the lake so I am very comfortable in the water.  However, all of my swimming has been recreational, so I decided to take a class to work on my endurance and swimming technique.  I took a triathlon swimming class at my local YWCA which taught us the Total Immersion approach to swimming.  I'm still new to it so I can't really succinctly explain what it means, but my take away is that it helps improves your efficiency and form.

Here are some of the main takeaways I got from this class:

1.  I learned an efficient stroke technique for the front crawl.  Since I took many swim classes as a child, I knew how to do the front crawl, but I can't say I was efficient at it.  At this class the instructor gave us a lot of feedback on our stroke and helped us improve our technique.  The class was extremely technique centric so the first 3 out of 6 classes were not exactly a "good workout" as we'd focus on one aspect of the stroke for 25 meters, get feedback, focus on another aspect of the stroke for 25 meters, get feedback, etc.  She also took videos of us individually at two different classes so we could see what our stroke looked like.


2.  More strokes doesn't necessarily = sustainable speed.  In my mind I thought that I would get further by taking more strokes, but that is not really the case (at least for me - I am sure that it's different for strong/seasoned swimmers).  By taking the class I learned that power/speed comes from using your entire body, especially your core.  My goal is to get through the swim and have enough energy for the bike and run so it was helpful to learn that I could slow down my stroke, improve my form, and still finish in a shorter amount of time than I would have if I had just increased my strokes/minute.

3.  The tempo trainer is my friend.  For those unfamiliar with a tempo trainer, this is what it is:

The tempo trainer is basically a metronome that you can put in your swim cap.  I HATED practicing piano with a metronome when I was a kid but it turns out that I love swimming with one. It makes me feel so much more calm and in control and it helps me control my breathing as I breath on the beeps.  Plus it keeps me from rushing my stroke speed.  You are allowed to use these on race day.

I'm so glad that I took this class as I feel much more prepared for the swim portion of the triathlon.  And if nothing else, it motivated me to get into the water once a week in the early portion of triathlon training and since swimming is the least convenient of the three sports BY FAR, it helped to have that motivation!

Did you take swim classes as a child?  Are you a strong swimmer? 

Tri Training: My Training Plan

Last winter, my good friend Courtney encouraged me to consider signing up for the YWCA Women's Triathlon.  She has done this race three times and had a great experience so she assured me that I would have fun.  I've always been in the "I don't need to try a tri" camp as it's always seemed a bit overwhelming to combine three sports into one race.  Plus in the past I did not have a bike so I always used that as my excuse to not do a triathlon....  but now I do have a bike and I can do all three sports (albeit not strongly) so I decided to just go for it and sign up!  I think it's going to be a great first tri for me as it's a local race, it's a women only race and it's a sprint tri which means I will swim 500 yards, bikes 15.5 miles, and run a 5k.  

Here are my thoughts so far on triathlon training!  (warning, the post got a bit long...)

Training plan:  The race provides a training plan but when I looked at it, it honestly overwhelmed me.  Through my many years of racing, I've learned that training plans are helpful but that I need to make them my own. Plus, triathlon training is not my sole focus for the year - I've also got a marathon to train for!  So I have totally modified the training plan and came up with something that works for me.  Is it an optimal training plan for a triathlon?  Absolutely not.  Will I be ready come race day?  I hope so.  I have absolutely no goal for this race besides finishing it and having fun so I feel comfortable utilizing a home-made less-intense training plan.  Maybe I'll regret that on race day but I don't think the anxiety of trying to follow the a scripted training plan + marathon training is worth it.  My overall plan is to run 3 times a week, bike twice, swim once, and do 2 strength training sessions.  Here are some more specific details about my training, broken out by sport.

Swimming:  Without a doubt, this is my weakest of the three sports.  I took years of swimming lessons as a child and grew up going to the lake so I definitely have a lot of experience swimming, but I am not exactly fast nor do I have a lot of endurance as most of my swimming has been recreational.  To gain strength in swimming, I decided to take a triathlon swim class through the YWCA.  I think that class warrants another post so I'll talk about that another time but the short story is that it's been very helpful.  Since swimming is my weakest sport I should probably be devoting more time to it, but I don't have a gym membership so I don't have access to a lap pool and it's not super convenient to get to a lake (and they are too cold for this wimp to swim in at this point of the year)... so right now I'm just swimming once a week when I go to swim class.  After class concludes at the end of June, my goal will be to go to a local lake to swim once a week.

Biking:  Luckily I live in an area that is really conducive to biking as I can walk out my front door and access many many miles of trails.  So getting in enough miles on the bike shouldn't be a problem.  My goal is to bike twice a week with one of those bike rides being a long one.

Running:  This is obviously going to be my strongest of the three sports.  I'm running way more miles a week than the plan calls for since I'm training for a marathon.  I'll be running 3 days a week with my run club and I don't plan on doing much more running besides that.

Bricks:  I've been told that brick workouts, which is a workout that incorporates two sports, are essential.  I haven't really started doing any of these, but my goal is to start doing them once I start doing open water swims next month as I plan on biking to the lake where the tri will be held, which is 6 miles away, swimming, and then biking home.  I also plan on biking to run club, which is 4 miles away, 1-2 times a week, weather permitting. I want to try to do some more intense brick type of workouts but I'm struggling to figure out the right day of the week to do that...  but I'll figure it out.

Strength Training:  The training plan doesn't call for any strength training but I want to try to fit in 2 strength training sessions a week as I know that strength training has made a huge difference in my running pace and overall look and feel so I want to find ways to fit that in.

Overall thoughts:  Even though I've crafted a plan of my own that is less overwhelming than the plan provided by the race organizers, triathlon training is still a little bit overwhelming. If I wasn't training for a marathon this summer, it might be less overwhelming as I wouldn't have to get so many running miles in...  The hardest part for me is making time for a personal life on top of training.  Phil is very understanding and respects the fact that I am goal orientated but he does kind of get the short end of the stick at times when I'm busy training for races like this... But I'm hoping we can do some of the runs together and I think he'll be up for coming swimming with me when the weather warms up so hopefully I can combine tri training with Phil time at least once a week.

All that said, I think that triathlon training will be good for me as it will force me to cross train, which my body will appreciate.  I know I've got the cardiovascular endurance to complete a triathlon and I'm trying to remind myself of that when I get overwhelmed or concerned about how race day is going to go.  I really want to have fun out there and have a great first race experience!

If you got through this whole post, you deserve a medal!  Have you ever done a triathlon?  If not, would you consider doing one?  For those who have done a triathlon, any tips/suggestions for me?