Brave New World

After years of poking, prodding, and not-so-subtle pressure from my wife, my coach, and my running spouse, I finally dipped a toe into the world of triathlon. I have no one to really blame for this except me. I set out to buy a bike and a trainer to bring with me to Erbil so I'd have a way to workout for Comrades that didn't involve sessions of 4+ hours on a treadmill. I figured sitting on a bike and watching a movie for a few hours would be more tolerable. While we were home in Florida over the holidays, I picked up this beauty, got a professional fit from one of the top fitters in the country, and left the store with all the gear and crap I'll need to ride it. Side note: Adam, the guy who did the fit, was eternally patient with me. He knew I was a new biker and took his time to help me get my cleats into the pedals (apparently Speedplay are great once you're using them; they're not so good for novices like me to learn to clip in and out of), explain all of the measurements he was taking, and talk me through the whole process. As a former engineer, I was fascinated by watching all the sensors hooked up to me show their data as a little cartoon stick figure pedaling away on the screen.

It took less time than the car ride home for Heather to inform me that after spending thousands of dollars on a bike and gear, I had no choice but to start training for a tri. Within an hour of posting a picture of the bike on Facebook, Mary emailed to tell me she was adding swim and bike workouts into my schedule as soon as I returned to Dubai. I landed in Dubai on 1/19, set the trainer up a few days later, and learned very quickly during my first workout that indoor riding is hot and sweaty. I was far more drenched after an hour than I am running outdoors for the same period at this time of year.

A week later, I found out about a beginner's triathlon training camp that some volunteer coaches from Tri Dubai were offering nearby. Needless to say, I signed up immediately. We spent the weekend at a really eclectic and oddly entertaining resort in Ras Al Khaimah, a few hours north of Dubai. This is the email I sent Mary about what the experience was like.

1. Wet suits are awesome! They keep my legs up.  

2. My stroke is stuck in high school. Not enough glide, hands cross in front, big S curve during my pull, hands enter angled with thumb into water first, all of which combine to make my hips wiggle. And we haven't even watched the video yet. It's clear to the coach that I was trained for racing and not for longer distance endurance swimming. She swims an Ironman in an hour or so, so I'm assuming she knows what she's talking about. :)  

3. Tri bikes are very twitchy and squirrelly. You probably knew that, but it was quite a surprise to me. It was all I could do to keep my balance when moving my hands from the aero bars to the handle bars. Getting my bottle out of the cage was an adventure to say the least. And let's not mention how I kept weaving all over the road every time I turned my head one way or the other.  

4. Speedplay cleats are great when I'm clipped in. They're a complete pain in the ass to get clipped in. I spent the first 3-400 meters of each lap during our transition training just trying to get them in and hear that lovely "click." Speaking of clipping in, I fell over with one foot in and one foot out before we even started our first ride of the weekend. In the parking lot. In front of the whole training group. Sigh.  

It really was a fun and enjoyable weekend. Lots of great swimming and biking drills, coaches who knew a ton about their best discipline, and a helpful and friendly bunch of people there with me.

Thanks to all the support and advice I received from everyone, I decided to go whole hog and enter a sprint tri the following weekend. It helped knowing that I'd be riding up to the race with one of my fellow campers who could show me how to get everything set up in transition. I knew the swim would be fine and the run wouldn't be a problem, but I was just a bit nervous about getting on the bike in a race given my dismal performance with clipping in at the camp. Turns out a generous application of dry lube on the cleats, springs, and pedals can help even a rookie like me get clipped in within a 50-100 feet. Recycling my email to Mary once again, here's how the race went:

I had a great time! Best part was kicking ass and passing people on the run. :)  

Swim - not bad for my first one. Total chaos in the water because they had to swim both the sprint & Olympic on the same short course when the fog rolled in. I never got kicked but gave & got a few elbows along the way. Was breathing very hard by the end. Definitely took some serious effort to get my heart rate down coming out of the water. 

Trying to get my cap off while unzipping the suit. Not smooth.

T1 - slow. Not smooth in running while peeling off my suit. Shoes & socks on pretty fast. Helmet strap came out of the buckle so I had to stop & rethread it before starting my ride. Ate some bloks while leaving to avoid having to try it on the bike.

Bike - clipped in fast for me. Yay lots of dry lube. Managed to keep a decent pace for all three laps. Had to learn to downshift coming into the uturn so as not to struggle coming out. Only made that mistake once. Passed some people and happy about that. Learned that a tri bike & aero bars are really much faster than a road bike when it's windy.

T2 - unclipped okay. Hard to run in bike shoes. Fast shoe change and out on the run. 

Run - Legs just wanted to turn over quickly coming off the bike so I let them. Started around 7:30 and settled in at 8. Total focus on sub-25 time. Made it by 5 seconds. :) Legs felt really strange. Not like jello, more like they were tired but still going fast. Does that make sense? It was like "jeez, I'm barely going" with "wow, how can I be this fast"

Had a blast overall. Tons of work but really fun.