Before I go on, let me remind you, that I have started triathlon training in October 2010, and have before never done and swimming, cycling or running apart from pure recreational....and for the past 15 years I rarely did any sports....
So what is an indoor triathlon...well, this is what you do:
Swim 10min: make as many laps/meters as you can in the 25m pool
Bike 10 min: make as many km's on a gym bike. The catch here is that resistance is set to minimal for everyone, so what really counts is the cadence...so keep as high cadence as possible for 10min
Run 10 min: make as many km's as possible on tradmill that is set at 6%
In between each sport, transition time of 10 minutes was allocated.
In order to calculate the final score some factors were used with each of the sports and the 3 times would be added up.
The preparation went well. Last week with over 12h of training, and this week only some 6 hours with 2 rest days.
During the training, I was swimming steadily at 2min per 100m, so was expecting today to swim some 500m in the 10 minutes time. On Bike, I had no idea as I never tried the bike in the gym...as far as running, I tested the treadmill at my gym and target was to reach 2km....treadmill training was at 3% as that is what was the case in the past Amstelveen indoor triathlons....but to my surprise today the rules changed to 6%...and so I had no target for today, just run run run.
Target ranking...well there was none, I kind of knew I would end in the top 3 from the bottom.
All of my Friday evening swim training buddies were competing in the recreational race, which is where in all honesty I should have been also, but as I hold a NTB (Ducth Triathlon Federation) number I had to compete in the official race in the afternoon. This gave me some time to go to the location and firstly see my buddies but also see the set-up and register and pick up my number.
Today I was number 87!
After some cheering, I was set and the adrenaline started pumping as I wanted to get into the pool and start. Went home to pick up all my gear and supporters and I was off to de Meerkamp.
It was time to start, and was nicely surprised that we were allowed to have a few laps swim warm-up which helped me to get the breathing right and get the muscles warm.
I knew swim was going to be tricky as on Friday evening I kind of injured my left shoulder and could not swim very well....but after some ibuprofen and fireice treatment I was as ready as I could be.
Siren went off, and so did I. First few laps were quite quick. My goggles were letting some water in which was not ideal, but there was no turning back. I had to move on.
Final distance was 550m, which was my PB by 50m, and I was of to a good start.
After the swim, transition of 10 minutes was just enough to get from the pool to the gym where all the bikes and treadmills were located.
I managed to set-up the bike seat to the what I at the time was the right height and do a small warm-up.
The siren went again, and off we were for additional 10 minutes. During the bike session it was not about the resistance set up but only about the cadence. I managed to keep the cadence at about 130 average which I was nicely surprised at resulting in distance covered of 6.6km. Not bad even though I had some muscle pain towards the end....I think I set up the seat too high...
After another 10 minute break, it was running on treadmill at 6%. After learning how the machine worked, the siren went off, and so did I.
Started at some 9 km/h, but very soon set the speed to 11km/h which I managed to keep until 9th minute when I went all out to 180 HR and 14km/h speed on the mill. Final distance after 10 minutes was 1.83km. Not bad considering I set myself a target of 2km at 3%....6% was tougher especially after the swimming and running...
Overall, I finished 5th from the bottom....out of 24 competitors that was 20th place.
Having looked at the photos and looking where I was far away from other competitors I realized that it was swimming where I lost the most points. Why...well many things but foremost my head position in the water was too high...so definitely something to work on in the coming months, and am sure that this will increase my speed in the water.
Happy with the result, and now to the next races and the first 1/8 triathlon in Ter Aar on May 22nd.
Tomorrow....1h of zone 1 spinning....just to relax the muscles and get ready for the next weeks training.
Thanks to all supporters who came to watch....as well as all Twitter friends wishing me luck.
The picture shows both your goggles clearly leaving the water when you breathe, try keeping at least one goggle under the surface. That should help you swim straighter and loose less speed breathing.
ReplyDeleteyes absolutely agree Roland....that was one of the improvements I made since February....and that is also something you can see in my timing...then I swam in 10min 550m, now it takes me less than 9min for 500m...
ReplyDeletethanks for your comment.