Practice Run

This is the second time I'm typing this post because the first time it was mysteriously erased during spellcheck. Unfortunately, this one will probably be abbreviated because I don't feel like retyping everything.

Anyway, my training group did a practice triathlon last Thursday. We did a 500 meter swim in a pool (down and back 10 times), a 10 mile bile, and a 3 mile run (both on the monon trail). The idea was to make this as realistic as possible to the actual event so we didn't get any time to change clothes like we normally do. We started in the pool. I finished my laps in about 12 minutes, which is a pretty good time considering where I started. I climbed out of the pool, quickly put on my shorts over my swimsuit, laced up my shoes, grabbed my bag, and ran out to car to get my bike. The transition from swim to bike killed me. It took me about 6 minutes to pull out my bike, put on my helmet, shirt, sunglasses, gloves, and MP3 player. During the actual event my bike will already be set up so I'm hoping the transition will be cut down to 1-2 minutes.

I felt good starting off on the bike but I think the fact that I had no concept of how far 10 miles was on the trail hurt me. I could have probably pushed myself a little harder but I was trying to conserve some energy so I wouldn't burn out. It was also somewhat difficult riding on the trail because it intersects walkways and streets causing me to have to slow down or stop several times. I estimate I lost about 5-6 minutes from this stoppage. My overall bike time was about 42 minutes. I kept my watch running so this also includes any stop time. 42 minutes is extremely slow. When you subtract the stop time you get 36-37 minutes which is better but I still want to get it down to about 32 minutes.

The transition from the bike to run was much better (about 1 minute). I parked my bike, took off my helmet, grabbed my water bottle (I ran with it) and took off. I must have been running on pure adrenaline because I couldn't feel my legs for the first 1/2 mile. By the time I got to the 1 1/2 mile mark I was starting to feel pretty good and increased my speed a little. I still had enough juice at the end to increase my speed even more and finish strong. My run time was about 27 minutes or 9 minutes/mile. This is faster than my pace for longer distanced races (e.g. half marathon) of 9 minutes 30 seconds/mile so I'm pleased but would still like to shave off 1-2 minutes from the overall run time.

My total practice run time (with running clock) was 1 hour 29 minutes.  This would have put me in about 270th place out of 500 participants in last year's Go Girl Triathlon. The winner finished in 59 minutes.  If I deduct my lengthy bike transition time and the bike stoppage time I would have finished in around 1 hour 20 minutes which would have put in about 130th place. Big Difference!

My goal is to finish somewhere in the 1 hour 15 minute range. With 2 more weeks of training to go, I think I can do it.  Regardless, most of my anxiety has been relieved with this practice run because I now know I will finish.