Training for an Ironman can really take a bite out of your social experience, so I guess this is how I spend my Saturday nights these days. I’ve been sitting here doing calculations for how fast I need to go to make certain times in races I have planned this year and I made an interesting discovery about my first (and only) Olympic triathlon.
The story of the race is not a pretty one, but I was trying to figure out how and where I can improve my times. My swim was absolutely horrid, 41 minutes for 1,500 meters, but the good news is, most of the swim times were 29 minutes and up, so I don’t feel quite as bad in retrospect. It really was a rough swim. Cold, rainy, and very choppy.
My bike was actually pretty strong considering it was raining the whole time and I was using cages instead of clip pedals. Time was one hour and twenty minutes for 25 miles. That’s close 19 m.p.h. I’m pretty happy with that, but think there’s a little room for improvement.
The run was very soft, but I know I can likely cut 8 minutes off of the 56 minute 10k fairly easily if I’m not such a pussy next time.
Okay, so I know you’re dying to hear the good news and why I am now thinking about giving triathlon lessons in one small, but very important niche.
As I was combing through the results for the Nashvegas triathlon, I started sorting by individual disciplines to see what the fastest times were in swim, bike, and run. That’s when it dawned on me . . . you can even sort by transition time. As I was looking at the fastest T2’s I noticed that I had the fastest transition of the day from bike to run. Thirty one seconds!
My T1 time from swim to bike was only 1:39 and it would have been much faster if I didn’t forget where my bike was.
That’s just over two minutes of transition time and if I could have just knocked a minute off that total I would have finished under 3 hours.
Note to self: let’s work on that transition, oh, and the swim and run.
Anyway, the point here is, I had a pretty crappy race, but there is a glimmer of hope in my triathlon future. And for now, I am the reigning Transition 2 King of Nashvegas Triathlon!