Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Triathlon Training: 3 Days to Tri


I'm down to 3 days left until my Triathlon. The one I picked for my first one is the Issaquah Triathlon in Issaquah, Washington, at Lake Sammamish State Park. Today was the last day of training before 2 days of rest leading up to race day. My training regimen up to this point has pretty much been my exercise schedule: 3-5 days of various types of exercise including swimming, jogging, cycling, elliptical trainer, etc.
I did a "dry run" last Saturday, although it wasn't all that dry. I did 8 minutes in the water at Lake Sammamish followed by 15 miles on the bike, and 15 minutes of jogging. I wanted to test out my preparedness on the following:
  • Can I swim in the chilly waters of Lake Sammamish without a wetsuit?
  • Will my Pearl Izumi Tri Shorts work well on the bike after being soaked during the swim?
  • Can I run for a sustained period after biking for 15 miles? (it's harder than you might think!)
The dry run was a great success. I only swam for 8 minutes due to the choppy waters. It was Memorial Day weekend, after all. The many boats out on the lake were sending in a steady stream of 2 foot tall wakes. I swallowed so much water during this test that I had to cut my swim short. The cold shouldn't be a problem. I'm sure that if I was trying to place or shave 30 seconds off my overall time that using a wetsuit would give me some benefit but for this first race I'll forgo it.
The shorts worked much better than I thought. I was able to wear the shorts during the swim, bike, and run sections of the workout. Running after the biking is now much easier than it was 2 months ago.
Here are my estimated times up to this point:
1/4 mile swim: 18:00
15 mile bike: 60:00
5K run: 38:00
Overall estimated time: 1:50:00
I'll post pictures and results this weekend after the race.

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