This coming Sunday, June 10th, the first race in the Central Florida Triathlon Series is taking place in Clermont, Fl (just west of Orlando). It is a sprint distance event consisting of a quarter mile swim, 11 mile bike, and 5k run.
I’ll be out there racing in the novice division. I’ve never done a triathlon before, but I’m ready. Back in college, I was a cyclist and cross-trained with serious recreational swimming. I fell out of riding when I graduated a few years ago, but took up running last year and ran in some 5k-10k road races. This will be the first time I’ve put all three pieces together at the same time.
Any tips? I’m tapering my training this week so I’ll peak for the race. I also plan on running through some practice transitions. I’m not out to break any records, just want to make sure things go smoothly.
Been there, not much else to do in Clermont (except watch them build housing subdivisions) except the Triathlon.
In all seriousness:
you may want to bring nose and earplugs for the swimming portion - a couple of years ago, there was some nasty infections from the lake water (can’t find the Orlando Sntn*l article link - archived).
Practice biking and running on hills - Clermont has probably the hilliest part of central Florida (gentle, but still somewhat annoying).
Say ‘hi’ to Opal and me as you go by. (Don’t know if Opal will actually there, but I just might take a drive out thatway.)
“Jet Jaguar” - never saw that Godzilla movie - I was thinking on the order of jet= fast.
And I’ve found out that the lake bacteria level is low, but we’ve had some rain which may be churning things up. All in all, don’t gulp a lot of water while in the lakes.
Thanks, everybody! The bike course does worry me a bit, as there are no hills here in Orlando to practice on (highway overpasses don’t count :)). At least the bike leg is fairly short. I should be okay on the swim, I’ve done some open water swimming. The water in Lake Minneola is clean, but because of the drought, the water level in the lake is down about 7 feet. I’ve heard there’s about a 2 minute run out of the water to T1, due to the ever-expanding shoreline.
I’ll post a report after the race, if I survive :).
The swim was harder than I expected. Swimming with 50 or 60 others around you is like swimming in a washing machine. I planned on staying near the outside of the group but somehow got shuffled into the middle. I probably got as much water as air. If I wasn’t well hydrated before the start of the race, I certainly was after the swim! I ended up backstroking much of the swim, just so I could catch my breath.
My transitions went well. I practiced them beforehand, and I was like a machine in the race. I bet I looked like I knew what I was doing. When I was setting up my transition area in the morning, a guy racked near me (also a novice) kept going on about the advice his experienced friend gave him. He saw me rolling up my socks and putting them in my shoes and told me “my friend says don’t waste your time with socks, it’s much faster without them”. When I carefully rolled up my shirt, he said “don’t bother with a shirt, a race belt is much faster, my friend said so”. Well, when I came into T1, he was sitting there struggling with his shoes, and as I left, he was still there fiddling with his race belt.
I cleaned up on the bike. I’m a strong cyclist despite the substandard equipment I have, I figured this would be my best leg of the race. I passed a ton of riders on the bike. I was only passed once, myself. There was one scary fast downhill where my bike computer recorded a peak speed of 42 mph. I spun out of gears around 35, so I was effectively just coasting, when a guy on a much better bike than mine went pedaling by doing about 50 or 55 mph. Considering I was on an ancient second hand bike with 12 speeds and downtube shifters, I think I did pretty good.
The run didn’t go as well as I hoped. My right side cramped up after the bike-run transition and I ended up walking the first half mile. The cramp went away and I ran the rest of the distance, but it already screwed up my time. At least I finished running.
I’m going to do it again. The next race is in about a month. I’ve got a mark to beat now (1:28:12), and I know where I can shave about 10 minutes off of that easily. I need to work on swimming, that was my weakest stage. I also need a better bike, though it felt nice to pass people with multi-thousand dollar bikes on a crappy old road bike I bought 12 years ago for $80.
I ended up backstroking much of the swim, just so I could catch my breath.