Training for My First Triathlon – Solana Beach

Training stats for the past few months.

Swimming

Going into this, I knew I wanted to focus heavily on swimming.  I had swimming lessons as a kid and periodically played or hung out in the pool.  I’ve gone boogie boarding and tried surfing, once.  I wouldn’t have drowned if I fell in the pool but the whole idea of swimming laps and swimming for endurance was foreign to me.  I do remember one time I tried to swim laps post-college with Jenn and LeighAnn.  They wanted to use that as fitness.  It was incredibly difficult.  That was my experience “swimming laps”.  The length of the pool was one of those apartment pools so not even very far.  They didn’t seem to have a problem though.  Anyway, that was terrible.  I’ve always disliked swimming and being in water so this was the most challenging part for me.

Swimming was also my greatest fear because of the open water.  Thinking about a triathlon, if you’re tired on the bike, you can coast, and you can even get off if you want, if you’re tired on the run, you can walk.  But what if you’re tired on the swim??  You can’t stop.  What if you are too tired to even tread?  You’ll just sink into the ocean and die.  I did learn that this was not the case because of the amazing Xterra wetsuit I purchased!  Everyone kept telling me how you would just float and you could just lean back and float on your back.  I did not believe it until I experienced it.  It’s awesome!  You really do float!!  I don’t think I could have completed the triathlon without the wetsuit.  Plus, it keeps you from feeling the cold water.  [Note to people out there, a triathlon wetsuit is very different from a surfing wetsuit!]

As for training for the swim, it was extremely awesome that ACTIVEx, Arch, Mike, and Margaret held beginner swim clinics for us newbies.  In the beginning, they had them twice a week at the ACTIVE pool.  I tried to go to many of these to learn about technique and then work on endurance.  I think back to that one time I went swimming with Pheme and Monica was watching and I was totally struggling to even swim down and back.  In June, they started open water swims once a week.  They started off in the bay but I was only able to attend one before heading to the ocean.  Then we went out to Fletcher Cove (the location of the race) to practice every Wednesday.  I still remember that first time I went out to Fletcher Cove.  We were practicing dolphin diving for entry which I had never done before.  I was getting pummeled by the waves.  I ended up swallowing a lot of water and all this water kept going into my goggles.  I felt really defeated.  I also felt really scared having to repeatedly enter the water.  I almost wanted to cry and thought to myself that I didn’t want to do the triathlon anymore.  This ocean business was completely different than the pool and the cove.  But, I went back, week after week and it got better and better.  I got more comfortable.  I am still not a fan of dolphin diving and I’m still not very good at it but at least I know how to dive under waves and get out past the break.  Towards the last month and a half, I think I split my time between going to open water swims once a week and hitting the pool one other day during the week.

Sunset after an open water session at Fletcher Cove

Cycling

I never really enjoyed cycling.  I remember when I first got my road bike and every time I rode it, my triceps were in so much pain.  So much pain.  That made me strongly dislike cycling.  In fact, I remember at point saying how it was easier to run 5 miles than to bike 5 miles.  I made some slight adjustments on the bike and I don’t really feel the tricep pain anymore.  Although my hands still get numb sometimes which I guess happens to other people too so I have to shake them out often.  You know what, cycling also hurts where the seat is despite having bike shorts.  Yup.

I opted for toe cage pedal for my bike so I could at least generate some power pulling up without getting the clipless pedals.  The first time I tried them out at Miramar Lake, it took me forever to get my foot in them, and then when I tried to get off the bike, I forgot about them and ate it.  I got this crazy bruise on my quad and gashed up my knee pretty well and now I have a scar to show for it!  I was a bit worried about having toe cages after this just because I really did not want to fall again.  Let’s just say, I pay extra attention to getting off and making sure I take my foot out of the toe cages well before it’s time to actually get off the bike.  After practicing a lot, I was actually able to get my foot into the pedal fairly quickly as it came closer to race day.  Win.  I had even pondered getting clipless pedals but figured I didn’t have much time to practice and didn’t want to risk eating it again.  I also wasn’t sure about paying for cycling shoes since I don’t know how much I’m actually going to ride my bike after this.

I didn’t train that much on the bike.  I tried to get out at least once a week just to get used to riding the distance and changing gears.  I discovered riding with the big cog on the front late into the game.  It makes you go so much faster!!  If I had trained with this earlier, I think I would have been able to develop more cycling power.

Running

I fell in love with running at one point in my life and then it kind of ruined me for 2 years.  I can’t believe it’s been two years since I injured my knee.  Honestly, it’s been really hard for me to get back into running.  Running 1 mile was already hard and getting to 3 was even more difficult.  It’s hard to be motivated to go running.  I went running cause I knew I had to in order to survive the triathlon.  The first time I ran (without stopping) a full 5K was for the LT5K back in June.  Prior to that, I had hobbled my way to the finish line with a run/walk at the Iron Girl 5K back in December.  It has been hard to run because I’ve been plagued with shin splints probably caused by trying to run too much too soon.  The act of running itself has been hard physically.  Each time I go out, it’s such a struggle and it’s slow.  I’ve been at about a 10:30-11 min/mile pace.  It’s hard to believe that one point in my life I ran a half marathon and that my normal runs would be 3-5 miles 4-5 times a week.  It’s hard to believe that I ran at a 9:15 pace.  It all seems so out of reach.  That’s probably the most discouraging part about running, thinking about how it used to be.  But being plagued by injury is no fun and it isn’t worth it.  So slowly I will have to go.

I tried to get a run in at least twice a week.  I usually focused on running the first 1-1.5 miles slowly and then speeding up each subsequent mile or half mile.  Each time my shins hurt a lot.  It was no bueno.  I even tinkered with wearing different shoes, new shoes, old shoes, current shoes, insoles, no insoles.  Didn’t matter.  I think the best thing was the break I had when we went up to NorCal for our secret Operation Fontaine of Joy.  It gave my shins some time to heal up.  They still hurt when I ran after the trip but not as much.

Transitions

I practiced transitions just a few times throughout the training season.  I learned very quickly that it was difficult to take off a wetsuit after open water swims.  It always got stuck around the calves and ankles.  Good thing there is glide!

I had one T1 and T2 practice at the mock tri.  At our CAxMP, during our crazy brick workout, we also had to transition T1 and T2 3 different times.  However, this was without a wetsuit.  Other than this, Fontaine helped me run through some transition efficiency tips one evening.  It’s amazing how there are these little things you can do to help you expedite your time at transition that I did not know about.  Like, rolling up your socks so they’re already half down.  Like snapping your race belt to your hat and just grabbing it and then putting it on while running instead of doing it there!  Very smart!

Overall

In all, I traveled about 140 miles via swim, bike, and run through training and spent about 42 hours doing it in the past 3 months!

I’m still able to collect money to get Kids in the Game.  $30 gets 1 kid in the game for a season of sports.  If you feel inclined, please make a donation to my fundracing campaign.  Thanks!