Indoor Sprint Tri - Downtown YMCA
This morning I participated in an indoor sprint triathlon. This was the second year for this event (for me) so of course I have been scouring my email and my Garmin historical stats trying to see if I'm better than I was last year. I couldn't find anything reliable, so I guess I'll compare myself to the Bryan Health Indoor Sprint Tri from last month.
The format was similar to the Bryan Health Tri, with a couple of frustrating differences:
Swim - 10 minutes; completed lengths counted.
Bike - 30 minutes; average WATTS counted, minimum resistance set at 5.
Run - 20 minutes; total distance counted, incline required to be set at 2%.
My morning didn't start out real great and I briefly entertained not going at all. I had slept super-duper hard and my body was sore like I'm coming down with something. Of course I woke up shortly after 6:00am when I actually could have slept until 7:00am. I got up, caffienated and fueled. Read my book and enjoyed the quiet time. I'm glad I went - my buddy, Swimmer Becky, made an appearance and showed those triathletes what fast really is in the pool. Love that girlie - so humble and just nice to hang around with!
Swim
I swam exactly the same number of lengths, today, as I did last month. Eighteen - 400yds in 10 minutes. I know how to get faster at swimming -- swim faster. It's just kind of scary to embrace the suck when you can't breathe. We'll work on that...
T1
We had 10 minutes to change from our swimsuits to cycling gear. Do you know how hard it is to put on a sports bra when you're wet?! I had a little help from my friend and we were off to the Kaiser spin bikes!
Bike
Up to the spin room for a little bike ride. The scoring was based on average watts which I'm a little confused about. I try not to compare myself to others - but my average watts were 80 and I biked 15.2 kilometers. The person next to me had average watts of 180 but only biked 10k. Now, it seems to me that in a true bike race I would have been the victor - but no matter. I compete with one person and one person only - MYSELF. My last race, I pushed hard to get 15k done; this time I did 15.2k with a little left in the tank to go running. I mentioned that I wasn't feeling great this morning and that was very apparent on the bike. I couldn't get into the zone and while my heart rate was as high as I like to push it on the bike (170bpm) I wasn't really sweating.
T2
We had 5 minutes to walk on Bambi legs down the stairs to the treadmills. I wasn't feeling very good, so I figured any run was a good run.
Run
We only had to run for 20 minutes, so I figured I could do anything for that length of time. One problem...the minimum incline requirement was 2%. I remember this making my legs feel like lead, last year. I usually run at a 1.5% incline at home, but that extra .5% incline combined with the effort to go as fast as I could was really challenging.
In a sprint distance, you can pretty much go all out and and just pay for it later. The combined time of the event is around an hour or so (depending on the distances) and you can really embrace the suck and see what you're made of. Last month, the tri that I did didn't have an incline requirement on the run. I put that sucker at 0% and ran as fast as I could for as long as I could. I came away from that with 1.8 miles for 20 minutes.
Today - I only managed 1.7 miles for the 20 minutes. However - with that incline I was working hard enough to have ran 1.9 miles on a flat road. See the chart below for conversion:
I did set a new max heart rate on my Garmin. I did a 5k max out back in October and got 183 as a max. Today, I hit 187 and kept it there. And boy, oh boy do I feel that run effort now. I will definitely need a nap. I haven't ever done much "racing" as a triathlete. In previous years, I showed up for events and just used them as a training session. The more I read, the more I'm convinced that a moderate amount of short course racing will make me an even better and faster long course athlete. It also allows me to embrace the suck in a different sort of way. And...I have learned that I love long-slow-distance training best. I'll leave the speed to my buddy and be proud as punch for her!
The format was similar to the Bryan Health Tri, with a couple of frustrating differences:
Swim - 10 minutes; completed lengths counted.
Bike - 30 minutes; average WATTS counted, minimum resistance set at 5.
Run - 20 minutes; total distance counted, incline required to be set at 2%.
My morning didn't start out real great and I briefly entertained not going at all. I had slept super-duper hard and my body was sore like I'm coming down with something. Of course I woke up shortly after 6:00am when I actually could have slept until 7:00am. I got up, caffienated and fueled. Read my book and enjoyed the quiet time. I'm glad I went - my buddy, Swimmer Becky, made an appearance and showed those triathletes what fast really is in the pool. Love that girlie - so humble and just nice to hang around with!
Swim
I swam exactly the same number of lengths, today, as I did last month. Eighteen - 400yds in 10 minutes. I know how to get faster at swimming -- swim faster. It's just kind of scary to embrace the suck when you can't breathe. We'll work on that...
T1
We had 10 minutes to change from our swimsuits to cycling gear. Do you know how hard it is to put on a sports bra when you're wet?! I had a little help from my friend and we were off to the Kaiser spin bikes!
Bike
Up to the spin room for a little bike ride. The scoring was based on average watts which I'm a little confused about. I try not to compare myself to others - but my average watts were 80 and I biked 15.2 kilometers. The person next to me had average watts of 180 but only biked 10k. Now, it seems to me that in a true bike race I would have been the victor - but no matter. I compete with one person and one person only - MYSELF. My last race, I pushed hard to get 15k done; this time I did 15.2k with a little left in the tank to go running. I mentioned that I wasn't feeling great this morning and that was very apparent on the bike. I couldn't get into the zone and while my heart rate was as high as I like to push it on the bike (170bpm) I wasn't really sweating.
We had 5 minutes to walk on Bambi legs down the stairs to the treadmills. I wasn't feeling very good, so I figured any run was a good run.
Run
We only had to run for 20 minutes, so I figured I could do anything for that length of time. One problem...the minimum incline requirement was 2%. I remember this making my legs feel like lead, last year. I usually run at a 1.5% incline at home, but that extra .5% incline combined with the effort to go as fast as I could was really challenging.
In a sprint distance, you can pretty much go all out and and just pay for it later. The combined time of the event is around an hour or so (depending on the distances) and you can really embrace the suck and see what you're made of. Last month, the tri that I did didn't have an incline requirement on the run. I put that sucker at 0% and ran as fast as I could for as long as I could. I came away from that with 1.8 miles for 20 minutes.
Today - I only managed 1.7 miles for the 20 minutes. However - with that incline I was working hard enough to have ran 1.9 miles on a flat road. See the chart below for conversion:
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| My treadmill was set at 5.4 mph w/a 2% incline. |
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| We R Ded. :) |
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