First Tri of 2008

First one for 2008 is in the books!

I completed the Southern Saratoga YMCA "Love to Tri" indoor triathlon this morning.

The Event
The tri consisted of 15 minutes in the pool, 15 minutes on a spinning bike and 15 minutes on the indoor track. The participant (by gender) going the farthest in each event gets 100 points, and everyone else gets points proportional to the distance he or she covered relative to the leader. For example, if I swam 24.5 lengths (which I did) to the leader's 40 (as did the leader in Mike's heat), he would get 100 points for the swim, and I would get 61. The top three men and women, regardless of age, win prizes.

Preliminaries
I signed in and picked up my race packet yesterday (a pretty cool t-shirt) so I knew my wave didn't start until 9:40 am, and that I didn't need to be on the pool deck until 9:30. The Clifton Park Y is only 15 miles from my house, which meant I got up at a very civil 6:45 am. and left the house at 7:45 am. I had plenty of time to sign in, get numbered on my right arm and left calf, and go check out the bikes.

Last year a vendor brought in 8 super cool high tech stationary bikes, complete with HD video screens displaying virtual courses that made you feel like you were out an actual road course - the bike got harder to pedal when you went "uphill" and you slowed down if you went off the "course" No such glitz and glamor this year - they brought down 8 spinning bikes from upstairs for us to ride. I have never been on a bike like this before, and wasn't quite sure how they worked. One of the nice volunteers - and there were plenty of them there for this event - showed me how to adjust the seat up and down, and forward and backwards, and how to adjust the handlebars up and down. I memorized the settings - 6 for the handlebars, K for the seat stem height and 2.5 for the seat position, and went off to watch the earlier heats.

I got to cheer for my dentist again - he's the one who introduced me to this event last year. He's a very good competitor and did well - I think he was second in the running portion of his wave, which was lead by a very quick 6 minute miler who ran the whole race with his head cocked to the left.

Final Preparations
Then it was off to the pool. Following the tip of a participant from last year, I grabbed two side by side lockers - one for my street clothes and one for my tri gear. I wore my bike shorts, glasses and flip flops into the pool area, and carried my towel and goggles. Not knowing where I would exit the pool, I hung the towel and my glasses on the safety grab bar nearest the men's locker room, being careful to put my glasses to the side, and not on top of, my towel - no repeats from last May, when I came out of the pool, grabbed the towel and flung my glasses into a nearby field!

Jessica from our Thursday nite swim class was warming up when I got there, and I got to cheer for her during her wave. She is a good swimmer and a good triathlete.

I was pretty nervous for much of the morning, but talking and cheering for Jess, and then talking the other people in my heat - who also admitted to being nervous - calmed me down. Donna came in and it was good to see her, and talking with her took my mind even more off of being nervous.

The Swim
We got about 3 minutes to warm up, entering the pool at the shallow end. This time, I took advantage and swam a couple of laps, first with the breast and then with the freestyle. We started in the water, at the deep end of the pool. I concentrated very hard on relaxing, getting some deep breaths before the whistle, and not going out too fast. Oh, yes - I also concentrated on not talking and missing the start, like I did last year!

When the whistle blew, I started my watch, and pushed off, being careful to slow down, stretch out and breathe. My goal was to swim freestyle and complete 24 lengths (12 laps) in the 15 minutes, just about a 10% improvement from the 11 laps I did last year. How did I do? Fair - I got 24.5 laps, so I made my goal.

But, I found my self holding each wall for a second or two, both to grab a quick rest and to look at my watch to see how much time was left. Turns out, by the way, that I hadn't turned my watch to the stop watch mode, and what I kept looking at was the time of day setting not the elapsed time. This was discouraging when I thought I had only done 7 laps in 9 + minutes, way under my desired pace. I asked the volunteer counting my laps how much time was remaining, and she then let me know each time I got to that end of the pool. I felt better and was able to push harder knowing I was on target.

Also, I got tired and had to swim one length with the breast stroke about 18 lengths in. On the good side, at some points when I started to get breathless, I remembered Kiera's tip and rolled farther to my breathing side and looked up at the ceiling - that slowed me down, let me get a fuller breath and helped me recover. ( I think that's like finding your sweet spot in Total Immersion.)

No zoomers for this swim, of course, and my feet did feel naked and my legs felt disconnected from my stroke - sharp, short kicks with naked feet do not provide the power response you get when wearing zoomers. But, my arms, legs and core were definitely stronger, and I felt comfortable pulling myself through the water. Thank you, Coach Aaron and Stroke Improvement Class!

All in all, I give myself a "B" for the swim.

The Bike
You get 5 minutes between events in this tri - a lifetime compared to outdoor triathlons. But, somehow the swim clock and the bike clocks were a little out of synch - and people were late getting on the bikes, including my friend Mike. This means he and the others got less than the alloted 15 minutes to ride, and could not cover as much distance as they should have been able to do - and lost points. I felt bad for them, and especially for Mike.

I learned two things about the Spinning Bikes. First, unlike the electronic stationary bikes I am used to riding, there is no relationship between the resistance and the speed/distance registered at any level of RPM's. That is, on the electronic bikes, at 90 RPM's you may be going 12 mph at level 2, but 15 mph at level 6, meaning you would be registering more distance covered at level 6. On the Spinning Bike, it made no difference whatsoever. The goal is to find the minimum level of tension on the bike which lets you attain maximum RPM's without letting the wheel spin out of control. It took me a few minutes to figure this out, meaning I was working harder but not registering more distance.

The second thing I learned is that no matter how fast you pedal, the bikes will not register over 120 RPM's. So my frantic two minute spin at the end of the period trying to gain more distance did nothing but tire me out unnecessarily. (Well, from a training point of view, I guess it was like doing interval training...)

In other words, to register maximum distance on a Spinning Bike in 15 minutes, pedal at 120 RPM's for the duration.

Final Result: 6.42 miles. Effort "A" Results "B"

The Run
After I got off the bike, I ate a piece of orange (the host Y had oranges, bananas, water, etc both in the bike room and in the lobby), drank from my 50-50 gatorade/water, changed headbands (both color coordinated with my classic blue EMS techwick shirt, of course), popped in a fresh piece of gum and headed upstairs to the track.

Since they count laps covered, not distance covered, during this event, it's best to run, jog or walk on the inner lane. The track is a little bigger than the one at the Guilderland Y - at the Clifton Park Y it takes 14 laps around the inner most lane to cover 1 mile, while it takes 15 trips on the Guilderland track. But, since the middle or jogging lane in Guilderland is 14 laps to the mile, and that's the lane I have been training on, I felt very comfortable.

I had run a 12:18 training mile on Friday night, a little over 50 seconds per lap, and I hoped to be able to match that, and cover 17 laps, a little under 1.25 miles.

Didn't happen. I forgot how tired my legs get after hard biking, and I had done no "brick" training before the event. I was able to jog the first two laps pretty well, but then I got tired. I ended up alternating jog laps with walking laps - not what I had wanted to do at all. Even with Mike, and Jess and her sister Melanie, and Donna's friend Mike cheering me on, I only managed 15.25 laps. I did the mile in 13 minutes, and then only managed 2.25 laps in the remaining two minutes. I'm pretty sure I did a 12:30 mile last year, and ended up with more laps.

Grade: Even cutting myself some slack for loss of training in the Fall due to pulled hamstring, "C-" (Note - my cheering section did point out to me that the other guy in my wave walked the entire time, meaning that I won't be last!)

Lessons Learned
Keep working on the swimming to build endurance - and swim more often without the Zoomers.

Since the next tri, which will be at the Guilderland Y on March 30, is likely to also use Spinning Bikes for its bike leg, train on the stationary bike at high RPM's.

Work to increase the distance I run during each run workout in order to build up my leg strength and endurance.

B-R-I-C-K-S!

I am more focused and train harder if I train with other people and if I train for a specific event.

Finally, participating in events with friends, cheering for them and having them cheer for me, is the icing on the cake. I am, after all, a Social Athlete!