2010 Issaquah Triathlon

Posted by neux on Jun 19, 2010 in Triathlete | 4 comments

On June 5th I successfully finished my first triathlon. This was a goal I set out to do back in August 2009. At the time I thought I was crazy, but slowly I went from being out of breath after a couple swim laps to swimming over a mile every Monday. I went from running a mile and feeling like I’m going to die to hitting 5k and feeling good to hitting 10k and feeling great! I didn’t do a lot of biking because I still don’t own one, but hey I knew how to ride a bike as a kid, how hard could that be?

All in all I’m extremely happy with what I achieved. The Issaquah Triathlon is a Sprint. Most sprints are a half mile swim, 12.4 mile bike ride and a 5k (3.1 miles) run. Not sure why, but this sprint was a quarter mile swim, 15 mile bike ride and even though they said it’s a 5k run, it felt less.

Goal #1: Finish the race! Success!

Goal #2: Don’t be last! Success!

Having achieved those two goals I decided to not beat myself up over my times, which weren’t great, but hey it’s my first tri and I learned a lot!

Swim

I probably learned the most from this swim. For some reason I decided to be in the inner front of my entire wave. Dumb! I was not prepared for the physical beating I took from the other swimmers. Smash, claw, smack, t-bone! What? When I hit the first buoy I couldn’t breathe and had to back stroke just to get some air. By doing this I lost a lot of time plus I was too busy trying to not die that I went waaaayyy off course adding at least 20% of the length to the swim. Ugh. I was a little delirious when I got out of the water.

Lesson #1: Let the fast people start in front.

Lesson #2: Don’t try to swim as fast as you can despite all the excitement. Do steady maintainable strokes.

 Swim Time: 13:33 (should have been closer to 9 minutes)

Bike

I found the biking portion nice and relaxing. I had a great cadence and didn’t fatigue. Despite that I couldn’t help but notice other bikers zipping by me even though their legs weren’t spinning nearly as fast as mine. What’s up with that? Well, I was borrowing my friend’s mountain bike and even though I put road bike slicks on the wheels I was at a bit of a disadvantage.

Lesson #3: Road bikes are significantly lighter than mountain bikes allowing you to move that machine easier.

Lesson #4: Road bikes have larger tires and different gear sets allowing for a single cadence to bring your much much further.

Bike Time: 57:08

Run

Transitioning from bike to run was interesting. My body still wanted to bike so my balance was a little weird and I felt nauseous for the first half mile, but I don’t think that slowed me down. I was definitely tired, but I pushed through and finished. I really loved the people with the water cups as I ran by. I felt like a real athlete!

Run Time: 25:47

Total Sprint Time (including transitions): 1:43:04

My next triathlon is next month July 18th. Seafair!