After spending the last couple of months preparing, today was the big day. I participated in the indoor triathlon at YMCA.
Since this was first triathlon, I was assigned to the beginnings group for male participants. I had a couple of goals I'd set out for myself going into the event. One was to finish the entire thing in under an half and a half. (The course was 500 yards swimming, 12 miles baking and 3 miles running). The second related to the first and that was to just plain finish the whole thing. And thirdly, I wanted to compete against myself and use this as a gauge of where I am in terms of physical fitness. And to hopefully find some strengths to build on and some weaknesses to work on in the coming months.
And I'm happy to say that I met or exceeded all my goals. I finished the whole event in 1:20.02. It could have been a minute or so less had there not been a treadmill incident (a series of four treadmills overload the circuit breaker and I lost some time coming to a quick stop, figuring out what next and then getting onto a new treadmill), but overall I'm satisfied. (The whole treadmill going off about halfway through that portion threw off a bit how I planned to attack the running portion of the event, but it wasn't a huge deal).
I had a leg up on a lot of people who were doing the event because of my preferred form of exercise--swimming laps. The part that most people dreaded the most (at least that's what a lot of them said) was the part I was looking forward to the most. And it was only 10 laps, which I did in a good time. That build up a bit of a lead for me right out of the gate and helped build my confidence. The transition from each leg made it interesting--feeling my body changing how it was exercising. I think the area I need to work most on is my cycling area. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to do the swimming and the running (running was the area I thought was my weakest going in) and didn't put as much thought into the cycling part. Part of it was we didn't get to try the bikes with the odometers before the race, so I couldn't formulate the strategy I eventually used until during the race. The other part of that is that I realized that while I do work hard in spin class, I need to push myself a bit more in certain areas.
I enjoyed the experience a great deal and the natural high after I was done was nice. And I got second place in the men's beginning division, which was very cool.
I did find it interesting to talk to my fellow participants and learn a few things. I noticed a lot of people were the most worried about the swimming aspect, which I can understand. I also was amused that a couple of the guys just came into the event cold (aka not really training for it) and weren't happy with their results.
Anyway, it was fun (yes, I know...me calling a triathlon fun. It's a crazy universe). And I learned a lot. Mission accomplished.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 4/04/2009 03:39:00 PM |
|
