InSimTri 1: Success!

InSimTri? What? That means "indoor simulated triathlon," which is a thing I made up. The Trideltathon in April is a 400 yd swim, a 6.2 mile bike ride, and a 3.1 mile run. So today my brother-in-law Mike and I went to the gym and did all of those distances in those activities. I didn't care about my time at all; I just wanted to see if I could complete all the distances back-to-back. And I did! Here's my "race report."

Race: InSimTri 1 - Knoxville TN - 12/20/08
Sprint triathlon - 400 yd/6.2 mi/3.1 mi

PRE-RACE:
Ate a banana and a dinner roll with peanut butter. Drank some Gatorade, got my bag together, called Mike, drove to the gym listening to awesome music to get pumped.

SWIM:
400 yd - 30:46
Ridiculously slow, but I didn't care about time. I'm still doing Total Immersion drills, so I don't even swim with a full stroke yet. I did the Double Underswitch the whole time with rest breaks after every 25 yards. Very very slow, but I am the FIERCE TORTOISE, and I completed the distance! (Mike did about four lengths and had to quit. He is generally in good shape, but hasn't trained at all at swimming, and I think this was a big wake up for him.)

T1:
9:11
Transition times are usually around two or three minutes, but this one was different than a real race. We went to the locker room and changed out of our swim gear to normal workout clothes. I'll have to find a way to simulate a real T1 before race day. Right now, I can't, because dripping water all over the gym is frowned upon. I also need to do this faster to simulate the heart rate and balance change without a long rest in between.

BIKE:
23:51 - 6.2 miles
On the stationary bike. I kept my rpms around 90 the whole time and my heart rate around 140-150. I usually train my HR around 130-140, but hey, it's race day, so let's pump it up! I used the Hill program to simulate changing terrain. Kept drinking water. I realize I need some wrist sweat bands because I use the towel a lot to wipe my face. No difficulties at all. Next time we'll do this on a spin bike.

T2:
?:?? (2:00?)
I forgot to hit the split button on my watch, so I don't know exactly how long this was. I'm guessing two minutes - I walked around a little and refilled my water bottle.

RUN:
37:35 - 3.1 miles
Again, real slow, and again, I didn't care. I started feeling my legs about 1.5 miles in. I train every day, so I can go 45 minutes no problem, but at this point I had been going for an hour non-stop. It wasn't difficult, but definitely noticeable. I think this will go away with time and more training.

TOTAL TIME: 1:43:23
(For comparison, the DFL (Dead Last) time for the Trideltathon last year was 1:44:35, so at least I won't be last!)

POST-RACE:
Good long time spent stretching, more Gatorade.

TAKEAWAYS:
Hooray, I can do it! The swim was definitely the weakest leg, but only because I haven't learned a full stroke yet. I'm positive that once that comes together I'll be okay. As long as I can swim one length (50m) I don't care if I have to rest between laps.

I plan to do this once a month, increasing the realism/difficulty every time. The final InSimTri in March will be on a real bike outside and real running outside too. I plan to have a full swim stroke by January and we'll use spin bikes. For February, we'll run on treadmills, or outside if we can get a fairly warm day.

Oh yeah baby, I'm a (sim)triathlete! FIERCE TORTOISE