1st "tri" out of the way

This morning, my friend Guy and I did our first "tri" of 2010. I put it in quotes, because we're not really sure if we should count it. Let me explain: We left at 6:30 this morning and drove two hours to Fort Collins, CO. The tri was supposed to be an indoor race, with swimming in a pool, biking on trainers and running either laps around their short track or on the treadmill. Instead of going a certain distance, each person gets 15 minutes to swim, 15 to bike and 15 to run. You're then judged based on how far you travel in that 45 minutes.

Once we showed up, we quickly realized this wasn't a triathlon for people who have done races before. Most of the people there were doing it because it was their first tri and they wanted to see if they enjoyed it. There were some people who didn't show up, so instead of going at our 9:00 start time, they moved us up to 8:45. No problem, because we weren't really expecting a lot out of the race, anyway. We spent about 10 minutes sitting in the hot-tub because we were bored waiting for our heat to start.

Finally, we hopped in the water. I was next to a lady who warned me right away that her goggles sucked and she is sorry if she runs into me. Guy shared a lane with someone who didn't look like they had done a lot of swimming. Turns out, my lady never ran into me and Guy only had a few issues with his swimming lady. The pool was a meter pool... the first one I've swam in since I started training. It took a lap or two to adjust to the extra distance in between turns, but it wasn't horrible.

The main issue was the cold I have been fighting lately. It showed up on Friday and I've been drugged up like crazy trying to fight it off. I thought I was going to be fine, but as soon as I started swimming, I could tell breathing was going to be tough. I still managed to win my heat by 50+ meters (I swam 750 meters in 14:50, before they stopped me with 10 seconds left). It's a little less than half a mile. I usually can swim a 1/2 mile in about 14 minutes, so I could tell I was struggling because of breathing.

We climbed out of the pool and made our way to the locker room to change for the bike ride. Guy and I both have clip-in shoes, so we brought those up with us, just in case the trainers worked with our shoes. Mine did, his didn't. The trainers were pretty cool. It had a nice video screen where we could virtually watch ourselves ride a coastal bike trail. We even had to steer our bikes with the handlebars. It was definitely the most realistic bike trainer I've seen. I managed 4.4 miles in my 15 minutes. Not bad, but I would have liked to average at least 18 miles an hour. I'm going to chalk that up to the cold again.

After the bike, Guy and I found treadmills side by side and started running. This was where the cold really kicked in. I struggled to run more than a 10 mile pace because I couldn't breathe. Guy was switching between 6 and 7.5 miles an hour. He kicked it up to 8 for the last three minutes. I stayed around 6 until the last minute, when I sprinted to the end. I only ran 1.5 miles in my 15 minutes, while Guy did 1.79. He's definitely a better runner than I am, mainly because he has focused a lot on running.

After we finished we went downstairs and changed and went to the "raffle." Everyone won something. Guy got a new pair of running shoes and I got a pair of socks. Overall, it wasn't that exciting. We basically paid $15 to do something we can do at our own gym. But it was a fun experience and nice to switch things up compared to just working out at 24-hour fitness everyday.