Indoor Triathlon With Hannah

Yesterday was the Lifetime Fitness Indoor Triathlon in Lakeville. I told everyone from the CVA Triathlon Club that if anyone wanted to do it, I’d go do it with them. Hannah signed up right away, so I did too. We were the only ones from CVA to go race.

Hannah doesn’t have a car, so I figured that I’d pick her up and take her to the triathlon. A few days ago, I got this message from her confirming that thought:

I got ready on Saturday night by shaving my shoulders in order to get a little more speed in the pool:

I picked up Hannah yesterday morning, and we headed down to Lakeville. This indoor triathlon works like this: we swim for 10 minutes, take 10 minutes in T1, spin on a spinning cycle for 30 minutes, take 5 minutes in T2, and end with a 20 minute run on a treadmill. After the race, all the athletes are ranked in each swim, bike, and run, and then point values are awarded to each distance. Those numbers are tallied to determine overall ranking. Got it? Good.

Hannah was in wave 3, and I was in wave 5. So I was there to see her start. Here we are just before her wave started:

Sorry my hairiness is touching your shoulder, Hannah.

She hopped in a lane, and got ready to go:

We ran into Nick who was “officiating” over the swim! Here’s Nick giving a little pre-race meeting to Hannah’s wave (she’s in the foreground):

Nick shouted “GO!” and wave 3 was off! Hannah did 13 lengths at the indoor tri in March. She wasn’t sure if she’d do better or worse yesterday (she’d been sick a lot recently). Here she is breast-stroking in the near lane:

Well, yesterday, she was able to swim 13.5 lengths! That’s better than she did in March!! Congrats Hannah!

When she ran through the locker room, I followed with my camera ran upstairs to the spinning studio and got ready for her to start the bike. She came running in with 4 minutes to spare! (And that was even after she got lost twice trying to get our of the huge locker rooms! Really!) She grabbed a bike and we got it set up for her. A few minutes later, she started her 30 minute spin:

Well, I was back off to the pool to start my wave. I grabbed a middle lane thinking I could share with someone, but no one jumped in with me (must be the body hair). So I had the whole lane to myself. Nick shouted GO, and we were off!

SWIM:

I was surprised after 200 meters to see my splits weren’t horrible! (I haven’t been swimming a lot lately.) I was hoping to get 21 lengths or more. After 20 lengths, I knew I’d be able to get 22 lengths. But I thought if I pushed hard, I MIGHT be able to get 22.5 lengths. I gave it a shot, but I only got about 22 and one-third lengths, not 22.5, so I officially was credited with 22. (That's 550 meters, which is 1:49.0 / 100 meters.) Here are my 100 meter splits:

1:37
1:49
1:53
1:49
1:51
0:58 (last 50+ meters)

T1:

I was excited that my swim went so well! Now, I had to get ready to really power through the bike. I quickly got nude, threw on my bike gear, tried not to get too dizzy (does that happen to other people in T1?), and headed up to the spinning studio.

BIKE:

My main goal for the race was to push HARD during the bike (actually, that’s been my goal in the last 2 years of tri racing). So I was ready to go nuts. There was one big difference between this indoor tri and the other 4 indoor tris I’ve done: at the ones in the past, the resistance is pre-set, and the knob is taped down on the spinning bikes so it’s “equal” for everyone. At this tri, we could set the resistance to WHATEVER we wanted. So we could ride really loose and just hang on for the ride! And that’s what I did.

I checked my cadence over 15 seconds at 2 different points in the bike, and both times, I counted 40. That means my cadence was 160! Holy hell, my hips were quaking! After 5 minutes, I had gone just over 3 miles. So I figured I’d shoot for 18 miles over those 30 minutes (that’s NOT equivalent to road riding). I heard the wave before us finish up, and 2 guys were just over 18 miles. OK... new goal: shoot for 19 miles. ;) I was pushing hard.

Hannah came running up after she finished her run. She did GREAT!! In March at the indoor tri, she ran 1.82 miles. Yesterday, she ran over 2 miles, and she said it felt easy!! NICE!! Then she grabbed my camera and got a shot of me “ridin’ sweaty:”

Yay! The "vein of approval" on my forehead! AND a leg muscle!

I hit 19.1 miles by the time my 30 minutes were over, and I was happy with that effort. I didn’t let up, and pushed hard all the way through. The one problem was that because my legs were flying all over the place, my feet were sliding around in my bike shoes. So my second toe on my right foot was feeling pretty raw. Dang.

T2:

Ran out of the spinning studio, down the hall, and up to the treadmills. When I took off my bike shoes, I showed Hannah the little bit of blood on my sock from spinning so out-of-control. She said “Eww.” Oh, and we shared "battle wounds" on our legs from trying to stop the spinning cycle after our feet flew out. Oww.

RUN:

I started off at 9.0 mph, and that felt pretty good! Hannah snapped a photo early on, when I still looked “presentable”:

- Up to 9.5 mph at 4 minutes
- Up to 10.0 mph at 10 minutes
- Up to 10.1, 10.3, 10.5 around 15 minutes
- Ran the last 90 seconds at 11.0 mph - ouch... that was hard!

That first photo of me looked good: I was running upright and looked strong. Here’s another photo that Hannah snapped with just about a minute left, and here I’m a little hunched over, sweaty, and praying for the sweet release of death:

I out-did my previous indoor triathlon best by 0.04 miles on the treadmill: I covered 3.25 miles in those final 20 minutes. (That's 6:09.2 / mile.)

So both Hannah and I had a great day!! We drove back up to St. Paul and went on our ways. I took a photo of the bit of blood on my sock:

And yesterday evening, I snapped a photo of the bit of pus over the raw area that rubbed off during the bike:

Yeah... add that pus / blood to that dead toenail and those hairy toes, and you have the trifecta of “oh, there goes your appetite!” Ha! I’d apologize, but I’m not really sorry. ;)

I’ll be back with the results as soon as they’re tallied! I KNOW Hannah will place better than she did in March, and I’m hoping for top 3. We’ll have to see!