Trying Out a Tri - IU Swim Club Indoor Triathlon

Sunday I completed my first triathlon and a couple things became very evident...

1. I have no clue how to ride a bike.
2. I can swim, but I don't know how to swim fast.
3. I can kick butt on the run.

The IU Swim Club Indoor Triathlon seemed like the perfect first race. I chose the "Cream" race that was a 600 meter swim, 8 mile bike, and 3 mile run. The other option was the "Crimson" race that was a 300 meter swim, 5 mile bike, and 1 mile run. I figured the Cream distance was closer to the outdoor distances that I would eventually want to try so I went for the longer race.

The swim was in an indoor pool. We swam in heats so I even got my own lane. It was at the Student Rec Center and I guess they didn't want a bunch of people stripping off clothes and running through the place so the clock stopped after each event and there were no transition times - like you could take as long as you wanted in transition!

The event was suppose to start at 8:30 am. I had to be at work by 2:30 pm so I figured I had plenty of time to do the race, shower, change, get a bite to eat and hang out at a friend's house in Bloomington until it was time to go to work.

So... I got my heat assignment on Friday and my heat went at 10 am. Well, I wouldn't have as much time to relax before work but that was doable. Then, they wanted to move me to the 11 am heat. I emailed back and said that was NOT going to work. I'd never done one of these. I thought I could be done in 90 minutes but I didn't want to cut myself too short! They moved me back to the 10 am heat.

Sunday morning rolled around and I got myself to Bloomington by 9 am, checked in, then waited for my heat. The heats went every 30 minutes. I hope I can swim 600 meters in 30 minutes! What if I'm not done in 30 minutes? That was all I could think about.

Finally it was time to start. Relax and just swim... A couple times I tried to go fast but felt out of breath and started hyperventilating and twice I had to float on my back for a couple seconds to get my breathing back to normal. I was the last one out of the water in 17:31.16. At least it didn't take me 30 minutes! The fastest woman swimmer swam it in 7:46.66.

After that it was a short walk to the locker room to dry off and change clothes for the bike and run. There were women in the locker room downing GUs and honey stringer waffles. Am I missing something here? I was the last one out of the water and I took less than 18 minutes. Why would you need a GU?

Next it was up two flights of stairs to the stationary bikes where there was a line for the bikes. There were two types of bikes - a standard stationary bike and what looked like a little spin bike. Everybody seemed to want the spin bikes. Is there a difference? I didn't want to wait around so I took the first available stationary bike. My timer told me to wave at her when I got to 7.5 miles so she could be there when I hit 8 miles then left.

So... I have no clue how the gears work on a bike. The timer said I could use whatever resistance I wanted. Do you go "farther" with each revolution if you dial in a higher resistance? Is this like using a higher gear? I had no idea. I never went over a "5" as I had no clue. I also noted that the "workout time" on my bike was set at 30 minutes. After a couple miles I figured out I was not going to get done with 8 miles in 30 minutes. I signaled my timer and asked what would happen to the bike at 30 minutes. No one knew for sure but thought the bike would "reset." I had my doubts. When my time hit 30:00, I had gone exactly 7.05 miles. Then the bike shut off. Arghh! My timer came over and tried to restart the bike while I sat there. Finally she figured out what to do and told me to signal her when I got to 0.95 and she'd add my times together.

Yup, I had the slowest bike time too, by almost 5 minutes. 34:43. The only person that went over 30 minutes. The fastest woman cyclist finished in 20:58.32.

Finally it was time to run. The run was 24 times around an indoor 200 meter track. This I can do. I finished 3 miles in 25:53.28, lapping multiple people multiple times. There were 20 women in the Cream race. I had the third fastest run time. The only faster runners were the woman that won the race (she ran 21:45.32) and a woman I used to run against in high school that was an All-State runner back then (she ran 24:44.28). Almost everyone else ran 30-40+ minutes for the run.

I ended up finishing 19th out of 20 in the women's race but I was immensely pleased that I had completed my first mini-triathlon! Final time was 78:07.44, which was under my goal time of 90 minutes.

Going in, I had thought that maybe I was a fast enough runner to make up for my inexperience in the other two events. Turns out there wasn't enough miles to make up the time. I have to get faster in the other events and figure out how to bike! Overall though, I thought this was the perfect event to try out a tri. I didn't have to go buy a tri-suit or swim in open water with a bunch of other people or ride a bike on the open road. Perhaps I'll try that next time!