Tri / Triathlon / Triathlons - do they float your boat?

Ah heck no, no visor and tt helmet, this is just for fun! I’m taking it so seriously I’ve put elastic laces in my lace up Mtb shoes and I did try a transition today after my ride- 35 secs seems ok for each transition?

Haha, no buying speed but doing the one thing that <5% of triathletes do and actually practice transition!

In other news I’m looking forward to some tris this season, not least because I’ve finally tried to fix my swimming rather than just getting fitter, first big step was using my left arm (big crash in 2016 meant I was protecting it unconsciously), then actually kicking, but next up is head position, rotation and breathing on both sides, helped massively by swimming 2x per week and one session where I’m sitting on the feet of a proper swimmer doing 40x100, CSS has dropped from 1:45 in December to 1:28, given at my fittest I was about 1:30 I’m pretty happy, also enjoying dropping club mates at will my weekly club sessions, especially as one of them told me in feb I could make it into the fast lane at club sessions any more….

First race of the season is a weekday sprint on 1st June then Windsor Olympic 10 days later, not sure what after that, I’d like to do a middle distance race but looking for a suitable local one I can fit around the family, ideally before training before London marathon really kicks in as I’d like to go sub 2:50 there…

I’m going swimming today for a shaky out with my wife who is an excellent swimmer and once swam the channel. I assume if I swim behind her this will be wet equivalent of riding behind a derny and I’ll be flying along for no effort!

Daft question maybe but does anyone swim in their tri suit for practise? You’d look a right bell but I guess we’re way past worrying about that

For a sprint i wouldn't worry as your not in the water long but for longer events it's always a good idea to swim in your race suit just incase there's some annoying seam in the armpit or something that rubs you raw that you didn't know about. Don't worry about looking like a bell as you say your waaay past that now. Good luck for the weekend 💪

My wife was very polite and stopped sniggering long enough to give some helpful tips! I definitely need to go to some swim coaching next and maybe some 1-1 to work out my breathing. For someone with massive hands and feet, huge lungs and big upper body strength I sure am an average swimmer! I obviously look the part as the lifeguard tried to direct me down to the Stockport metro elite training half of the pool but appearances are deceiving!

Is it better to have coaching in a pool or one of those endless pool things?

Anyone doing Eastbourne next month? I've just entered

Not me, I’m a northern monkey, but I am considering Windermere tri as we are already in the lakes that weekend for a swim run for my wife that got cancelled

Ok, I've got the bug. Just came back from doing Challenge St. Polten in Austria in a relay. Same person did the swim and run, I did the cycling. I really liked the atmosphere of the race weekend, and we did a 5:03:59. Probably gonna use this winter to train for a solo 70.3 :)

Any fun sprint races near London early autumn to get my feet wet?

Joe Skipper rode a 3h16 IM bike leg at the Sub7, run in progress now.

https://youtu.be/9FrKwSRaDc8

Dowsett put his ride on Strava. Gotta love that "Intensity Factor: 0.81"

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This is bonkers fast

The product placement schtick can fuck off though.

Yes, but it comes with the territory unfortunately.

Joe drafted in to replace Ali B at short notice, was on pacing duties originally. (Edit: just learned he was binned off pacing post-covid). His bike team was such a strong lineup!

Katrina Matthews raced that superbly.

Cool to watch but I feel like the previous world record where he stopped in a portaloo and had no drafting is more impressive? Blumenfelt’s coach said he was freewheeling in places and having a stretch on the bike!

Cool to watch but I feel like the previous world record where he stopped in a portaloo and had no drafting is more impressive? Blumenfelt’s coach said he was freewheeling in places and having a stretch on the bike!

Yeah. It's hugely impressive swimming, cycling and running. But the team time trial on the bike does detract from it. Even Blumenfelt was staggered how fast the bike was, I think he predicted it'd be about 20mins slower. Joe Skipper seemed to get his estimates pretty much bang on though.

Next time?

Rather than detract, it makes it a different branch of Triathlon. Who can assemble the best team, work well together & execute a plan on the day to deliver the fastest time? It opens up the sport to a wider audience e.g. cycling fans tuning into see Dowsett, Bigham etc smashing it for Skipper.

Sub 6.30/7.30 is the next obvious target and will be interesting to see how it is approached.

Eastbourne was great today i thoroughly recommend it. Well organised well attended with a good atmosphere and plenty of spectators as the sun was out. The bike isn't as hilly as it looks just as couple of short slopes but loads of fast recently resurfaced sections all on closed roads. I wish I bought the TT bike instead but the run is harder than it looks with half it gravel with a couple of long draggy uphill sections loads of dead turns and a detour back through transition at the half way point but the other half is right next to the sea which is nice. I managed to podium still but i need to stop taking my bike for granted because its not what it was pre baby for obvious reasons and going just ok doesn't win races. Good to get this first race out of the way now i know where I'm at and know what I've got to do. Less beer and more training would be a start.

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I don’t understand how the kiwi guy at Leeds World Cup admitted he caused the crash but still won the race? DQ?
Brownlee seemed mad about it, some pretty spicy comments in his neighbours WhatsApp that my in-laws are in!

Signed up for my first crack at a tri tomorrow morning, bit nervous, haven’t been nervous for a race in a long time!

Seeing some form coming through in the swim, came 9th in an open water 3km last week in shitty choppy conditions with a time of 53 mins, so should hopefully be up there in the 1500m.

Bike, my ftp is back up to 291w, trending in the right direction but a way off my 330w ftp of old. Internet suggests 85-95% of ftp for a standard distance tri, so I’ll try to hover around 260w +/- 10w.

Haven’t done much running at all, and never more than about 5km off the bike, so it’ll be a case of holding on for dear life at that stage.

Beyond a non serious relay tri, I’ve never actually practiced transition, but I learned a lot from that relay. Not using socks for the cycle, and only using ankle socks for the run. Have a race belt and elastic laces. I’ve played through transitions in my mind a good bit, what could go wrong.

Fuelling, decent breakfast at 7am, some fruit at 9am, and maybe a gel just before the swim at 9.50am, and maybe a gel just as I start the cycle, and again just coming to the finish, or else just commit a few seconds in each transition to inhaling a gel?

There's no need to fuel in a standard distance event, surely? Unless you've trained with eating, it's also a recipe for cramps and the shits.

Practising transitions is easy enough to do in your front room, and can easily save you a few minutes of fucking about.

I took a gel on the bike for my first sprint, mainly because we'd stood for about an hour extra waiting to swim so I was running on fumes.
My next race is a 5am registration, how the hell do you eat breakfast for that!? Apparently you get a beer at the finish too

Tentative results from garmin, awaiting the official times:

Edit: official times in, 26th out of 109 finishers, run was tragic but overall happy enough with that for a first outing

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Slightly late reply for @Colm89 but I'd take a gel or two on a short race personally.

Today's sprint then I had a gel 5mins before the start, then toward the start of the bike. Not because I'm going to run out of energy, but just for the slight sugar/caffeine hit.

First sprint in ages in Dartford. Was relatively fun. Swim fine, solidly mediocre given I've not been swimming. Bike I felt I was taking fairly steadily at ~82% normalised, but ended up with 2nd fastest bike split - maybe I should take the road bike with tri bars more often. Run was good, first time I've managed to go sub 18 off the bike.

Crossed the line first, then had to watch as 4 people in the wave that started 15mins after came in quicker than me, so had to settle with 1st old man. Would have been nice to have been racing them on the run to see if I could have found the 20 seconds for a podium, but pretty happy all in.

Solid effort. Was there much elevation or headwind on the bike? Was that an even pace on the run or did you bit a wall?

Bike was an out and back, undulating course with a big headwind on the way out. I was using my forerunner 745 with extended display on an edge 520 plus, but never thought to check what data screens it had, so while it recorded power, I couldn’t view it on the bike so had to go off RPE, and it’s 7 or 8 years since I last rode a 40km tt. Looking at the numbers, I could have gone 10% harder on the bike if I had the motivation of that on a screen in front of me. It was 50w below my ftp.

Run splits were as steady as you’d expect for a course with a big enough lump in the middle. See attached.

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