I'm talking about the 2012 Upper Main Line Y triathlon consisting of a 450 m. swim, 10 mi. bike ride, and 5 km. run. I had been thinking about doing this for over a year before I convinced myself I could do it. I trained for four months prior to the event during which I:
- Spent $400 fixing up my 40 year-old Schwinn LeTour bike that I did not use.
- Crashed same bike two weeks before the race and escaped with minor scratches.
- Felt exhausted and cranky at work most of the time.
- Lost 5 lbs. while eating unconstrained amounts of food.
Here are my splits as per my Ironman watch.
| Swim | 13:00 |
| Trans #1 | 5:27 |
| Bike | 44:17 |
| Trans #2 | 2:38 |
| Run | 34:38 |
It was a perfect day -- temperatures in the 50's to 60's, brilliant sunshine, low humidity. Because the swim event was in the outdoor 50 m. heated pool, the 300+ participants were divided into groups and each group started only after the previous group completed their swim (every athlete wore a timing chip which was tracked by computer). This resulted in a nice, peaceful competition of athlete vs. self instead of athlete vs. crowd.
The swim was fun, the bike ride was challenging as I had to walk my bike up the two steepest hills. The run was dreadful. After finishing the bike ride I did not want to run 5 meters let alone 5 kilometers. But following the mantra of "put one foot ahead of the other, now REPEAT" I muddled through the run.
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