Triathlon #1 of 2010

My first triathlon of the year was this past weekend; an early 4:30am wake up call for east coast mark. As I rolled out my garage, it was a steady downpour - and I wasn't sure we'd get this thing in. However, these triathlons are way too complicated to reschedule, so they always make a big show out of 'race will be held rain or shine.' So off I went.

By race time at 7:45am, the rains had parted - and 300 or so of us were off in the swim. Of the 50 or so guys in my age group, I estimated that I was one of two guys that didn't have a wetsuit on. The water was plenty warm, but I've been learning that the wetsuit gives you considerable added buoyancy - allowing the swimmer to focus on their stroke, and not so much about staying afloat. Puts me at a disadvantage, but I'm also not a particularly strong swimmer. Yet.

For me, this was my first swim of the year - and I was predictably slow and toward the back of the pack. The one upside of being toward the back of the swim pack is that I get kicked in the face less. Though, I have aspirations of soon being up front, and delivering regular jaw blows to the slowpokes behind me.

(I'm somewhere out there in that pack of yellow swim caps.)
For the bike leg, I was considerably more optimisitc. This year, I upgraded to a new Trek Road Bike, and added a set of aero bars to put me in that aerodynamic time trial position (aerodynamic position not pictured). It all worked pretty much as planned. I averaged just over 17mph for the 12 mile bike leg, and at times was up over 25mph. The only people passing me on the bike were the hard core riders who, jerkishly, were flying.

The run, normally my strong suit, was not my best - as I'd put so much energy into the bike. However, it's early in the season and my running legs are still only at about 70% - so plenty of room for improvement there as well. Also, I plan to do more 'brick' workouts - which is doing a hard bike ride, and then going immediately into a run.

All in all, pretty pleased for this early in the year, and I'll probably do my next Tri in about 3 weeks. I've also decided I'm going to invest in a wetsuit. I'll save my readers the pictures, but instead - you can get a feel for the suit I'm buying from this guy from the catalog:

Go ahead. I'll give you a minute to let your imaginations run wild.

And for a walk down triathlon memory lane, my first ever Triathlon back in 2009.