New to the sport.

Welcome to the fun Ed!

Haven't done any swimming yet. Will be my weakness for sure. Tri season is wrapping up, so will have time to try to get my swimming down for next year.
Hope to do a half iron next year.

Woah! Half-Iron is a big step!

Not saying you shouldn't do it, but do make sure your have a few shorter races to "get your feet wet" and build up to the distance.

Also, having made the switch from Tri's to Du's I can tell you duathlons are harder than tri's because of the extra running... Just to give you a little ray of sunshine in the process

Thanks Nate

Running is my strong point, but I am fairly new to that. Nothing fast and ran my first full marathon last year, did some 5ks and a couple Halfs before it.

I will do a few sprints before I do a Half Iron. Hardest part of this sport is finding time to train three disciplines. And with a new born and
a 9 year old daughter time is very limited. Waking up to train at 4:00am has been working for the last couple weeks.
Hope to learn a lot in the next few months.

Eddy Souza

Starting to spend a little more time on the site. Saw a post about a Florida Triathlon today. So just signed up for the Great Floridian 140.6, at least I have a year to train for it. Saw that it's bike course is very tough and it's my weak point at the moment. Man I'm going to suffer in a fun way of course.

Go big or go home!

Big race, but with the right training you should be ready in a year. Just make sure to get in a bunch of practice races before then!

Welcome Ed!

A half is a good place to start! Just don't let anyone tell you you can't do it!

Running is the hardest part, so if you have that down you're already half way their...

Cheers,

Little follow up. I am now pretty much in love with triathlons, although my swimming is horrible.

When I decided to sign up for Great Floridian 140.6 last year I really had no idea what I was getting into.
Did a few sprint triathlon races and a duathlon sprint series and I learned alot where I needed to be. For the sprint
triathlons I learned I could swim about 100yards then have to swim on my back, doggy pattle,etc. the rest of the way. Legs were shot exiting the water.
For the duathlons I did good as I got into running four years ago and its my strongest part of the sport.

Leading up to GFT 140.6 one of my running buddies told me I better get more bike time in. Got in about two months of bike training in and focued on high intensity ride. Normally did about 23 miles per ride but did get in a 85mile ride and got in a very nice 60 mile/ 6mile brick a week before the race.

For the race itself things went perfect. GFT is very well run and everything was super well organized.
I knew i can't swim so I bought my self a snorkel for the swim portion. I exited the water in 108 place out of about 230 starters, there were people finishing the swim portion and I still had one lap to go. Didn't let that bother me and just focused on not getting swam over. Legs felt surprisingly fresh exiting the water.

Jumped on my bike and it was time to start passing some fast swimmers. First mile on the bike course has a big climb and knew I should keep it steady.
Course has lots of rolling hills which are pretty tough going up, but the descent is pure fun. Ended up with I think the 12th fastest bike split.

I made it to the run portion feeling great. My confidence was maybe a little too high as i did the first 7-8 miles at a 7:30 pace. At around mile 10 I started walking the aid stations, getting a couple cups of coke and one water of cup. There were aid station every mile so did quite a bit of walking. About mile 23 I got my speed back and raced towards the finish line. Run time was 3:30 minutes. Crossing the finish line felt amazing. Finished 9th overall. Awesome race that I will be doing again next year.