Alan competes in MinHaHa Triathlon

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Alan competes in MinHaHa Triathlon

The pool where Tyler has his swim team holds an annual triathlon, and I thought that I would sign up and give it a go this year to show him what a bigger triathlon is like.

With all the work on the house, and vacation, much like Bolder Boulder I hadn't done any training for the bike or the swim, and just a little running, but I figured I could still get around the course.

The event consists of 300 yard swim (12 lengths), 11.5 mile bike ride and then a two mile run. Luckily for the competitors the weather on the day was overcast, around 64f, which is ideal although a little chilly!!

I had put down six minutes for my swim as I figured 30 seconds a length, and was pleasantly surprised when I got out of the pool after five minutes, next time I should really get lessons from Tyler and get a better heat/draw (so I can draft off a faster swimmer!).

My transition was slow, as I stopped to put on socks and tie shoelaces (any real triathlete would just go barefoot and lacelock).

I decided to use my mountain bike for the cycle section (in part because they were not closing the roads and I didn't feel comfortable potentially being hit by a car and partly because I hadn't ridden the road bike for many years).

I passed a lot of people on the bike section, and a few people on road bikes passed me, but I managed to finish the bike section in just under 40 minutes (17mph average) which isnt too bad given the number of hills and lack of practice, plus wanting to save something for the run.

Onto the run, it is amazing how riding a bike hard affects your ability to run. My legs didnt want to respond to running fast, but there was a target runner ahead of me who I gradually reeled in over the 2 miles, passing him on the final hill and straight. I had run this course on Thursday in 12 minutes, today I ran it in 14 minutes, so my triathlon run time is roughly 1 minute a mile slower.

Overall I finished in 42 place, out of 281, finishing fourth in my age division missing out on a medal by 16 seconds, and my overall time was 1 hour, 1 minute, 6 seconds. (They don't do any split timing, but I am pretty confident if I do it again that I could get under 1 hour.