Race Report: TriKC Indoor Triathlon

The site of my first triathlon.  Creepy.

So I participated in my first Triathlon on Sunday.  OK, it wasn't outside, it was weird distances and there were less than 10 people entered.  But...there was a clock, we measured distances, we did all three disciplines with transitions and we were racing each other...so I'm calling it a race. 

This weekend was the third (my first) indoor winter triathlon put on by the Kansas City Triathlon Club.  TriKC schedules four of these (one a month, Jan - Apr) prior to the outdoor season starting in May as "tune ups" for the big races.  They are very laid back, very grassroots (no finishing medals, t-shirts or ridiculous entry fees) and a lot of fun.  Basically we get a group of TriKC members together (guests too) on Sunday morning and you start out in the pool.  You swim for 15 minutes counting your laps, the further you swim, the better you do.  Then you get five minutes for a transition to the spin studio where you spin for 20 minutes, again, the further you go, the better you do.  Then you hop off the spin bike and run upstairs to the indoor track and run for the remaining 20 minutes of the hour, again, the further you go, the better you do.

If you do all of these races in the series, you would (hopefully) see an improvement in the distance you can go and it is a good way to measure your progress.  It's also fun to have a few other competitors there to push you to go a little faster under the guise of friendly competition.  It definitely feels more "race like" then working out by yourself. 

For being my first "race" I was a bit more rushed than I would have liked.  We ended up going to 7:30am mass as per usual and then I left straight from church (Mrs. Gias and I drove seperately and she took the girls home) to get to the gym, which was downtown and took me a bit of time to get there.  I found it without any problems and rushed inside, still in my church clothes, with gym bag in hand about 20 minutes before my race was to begin.  Little did I know that the time change must have thrown everyone a loop (spring forward this weeked!) because I was the second to arrive after Jan, one of the TriKC organizers.  I chatted with Jan for a few minutes then headed into the locker room, still thinking that we would get started in about 15 minutes, right at 9:20am.  

I slipped out of my church clothes and into my tri-clothes...OK, full disclosure...I wasn't sure if I would have time or access to a locker room before my heat started, so I wore my speedo under my slacks to church.  I don't know if I had some weird vision of acting like Superman stripping off my church clothes to reveal that I was ready to swim or what.  In fact, if I did have to do that, I'm pretty sure that me getting out of my church clothes and into a speedo on the pool deck would have been even worse than me having to find a bathroom to change.  Anyway...

I left the locker room to check out the pool and a few other volunteers had wandered in.  Amy, Tina and Don had all arrived.  They were volunteering for the race to count laps, keep time, etc.  Awesome of them to show up on a Sunday morning to help.  This was my first event with TriKC and everyone was great, especially the volunteers. 

It was getting to be about 9:12am or so and I was still the only competitor that had shown up.  This might be embarassing if 1) I have to race myself; 2) have 4 volunteers watching me the whole time; 3) haven't ever done this before so I'm not 100% sure how it will all work.  Thankfully a Rick and John sauntered in a minute or two later and we had enough to at least get a little race going. 

I wandered down to the pool to set up my "transition area" (really just a  place on the ground for my towel and shoes) and hopped in to start warming up.  (I did not go to the spin studio to adjust my spin bike, this was a significant mistake we'll learn about later.)  I did a few quick laps to warm up and noticed that the pool was salt water, not chlorine.  Interesting, I've never swum in a salt water pool before, it was kind of cool.  Anyway, I had to jump out and towel off for a minute when the rest of the crew came in becasue we were getting body marked.  Yeah, there were three of us in the heat, (five more showed up for the heat after us) but we still got numbers written on us with permanent marker anyway...kind of fun.  (I was "7", by the way).  (Who am I kidding, getting a number on my arm was awesome!)

Before I knew it we were getting ready to start our three man heat.  One of the competitors, John, was doing his first triathlon, just like me, and training for a half-ironman race in Lawrence in June.  He and I have the same swim coach so I knew he would be pretty good.  Lined up on my other side was Rick, a veteran of triathlons in his 50's.  Although he had a few years on John and myself, he more than made up for the age difference in experience. 

I felt a little nervous going into the swim, not knowing what to expect or how exactly to pace myself.  I knew it was 15 minutes and that I could probably do about 800-900 yards in that time.  However, your nerves get going, you're FINALLY swimming against someone and you just don't know how you'll react.  Luckily I'd done some competitive swimming in high school, so I wasn't going in totally blind. 

Next thing I knew, the clock started and we were off.  I started the first 200 yards waaaaay too fast and knew there was no way I could maintain that pace for the duration.  I also knew that I had pulled away from the other two pretty significantly and that I wanted to continue to pull away from them so I didn't let them creep back into the race.  I continued to pull hard and before I knew it I lapped both of the other guys in my heat.  I checked the clock and noted that about 8 minutes had passed.  I knew I could lap them again if I kept my pace steady, so that became my new goal.  At the 13 minute mark I passed Rick and at about 13:30 I lapped John again.  There was about 45 seconds left and I knew if I sprinted I could pound out one last 50 so that's what I did. 

I hopped out and learned that John and Rick had both done about 700 yards each and I had finished right at 900 yards.  That was the upper limit of where I thought I would finish, so I guess the pacing wasn't too bad after all.  I quick slipped on my shoes and threw on a shirt in the "transition area" (pool deck) and noticed that we still had three or four minutes left before we could start spinning.  I quick ran into the locker room, because I had the extra time and threw my towell in my locker and went to the bathroom.  I ran back out to the spin studio with only a few seconds to spare.  This is where my naivete cost me.  I didn't adjust my bike before the race and by the time I got to the studio the time was about to start.  I ended up with my seat too low on a bike that scraped against the pedal guard (annoying and it slows you down) for the entire 20 minutes.  I considered jumping off and starting on another bike, but I thought with such a short race that would probably cost me too much time.  Instead, I pedaled hard and got through the session in about the same distance as John and Rick, but I think I had to work a lot harder at it because of my lack of preparation.  I won't make that mistake again.

At the end of the spin session we hopped off our bikes and scampered upstairs to the indoor 1/10th mile track and started running.  I have to tell you, swimming to biking to running makes your legs feel weird.  It's different muscles and you are shocking your body from one thing to another.  My legs felt a bit Jello-like for the first couple of laps.  I was ahead of John, but Rick was ahead of me by about 30 or 40 feet.  I hung back, trying to get my legs to feel right and to get my pacing down.  I knew if I kept him close I could try to pass him later in the race.  After about 5 or 6 laps, I decided I needed to make my move and pull in front.  I started to increase my stride and passed by Rick in about a lap or so and continued to pull away from him for the duration of the race.  The run after that point was a little monotonous, 1/10th is a short track, so I ended up going around 21 times; it all starts to look the same after a little while. 

At the end of the time I finished ahead of John and Rick and felt great.  I walked around and thanked all of the volunteers again for their time and traded a few quick stories with them. 

It was a great race experience.  It only took an hour, I had a clock, others to race against and it was a great change of pace for my training.  Overall, I really enjoyed the race and I'm defintely signing up for the next indoor tri in April.