Hi I'm new

Good luck. No shame in walking. Just get to the finish line and plan & prepare for your next race.

The swim and bike will be most challenging without preparation. Should be quite an adventure.

yeah, it will be difficult for sure. I will start training for it now, but I really only have a month. I rode the stationary bike at my gym today and did 15 miles in 37 minutes. I'm not sure how closely that correlates to my real-world performance, but i'll find out when I can hop on a borrowed bike and try for real.

As for the swimming, well I've got to find a pool near me that does lap swimming at a time that fits my work schedule.

Thanks for the support.

Good luck in your journey. I started in this 16 months ago at age 59-1/2 and just competed in and finished my first half Ironman. You can't possibly be in worse shape than I was when I got started.

You'll never forget your first triathlon, so embrace and savor the entire experience. Sprint triathlon distances are a great place to begin. I did mine on my mountain bike last year because at the time I did not own a road bike.

I am looking at your handle and wondering if the 'mt' at the end means you're from Montana. If so, where?

Edited by HaydenHunter 2016-07-01 12:49 PM

Hey, thanks for the kind words. I am in Great Falls.

I went for my first swim ever, i did the whole 500m... 25m at a time. Im glad i went for a practice swim, If i would have waited till the real thing to see if i could swim, I would have given up and gone home. I guess I just gotta keep on keepin on.

Just keep swimming. I can breast stroke forever but when I first started doing the crawl I my limit was about 50 yds without having to stop and rest. It seems like the improvement in swimming with practice volume is very rapid.

Great Falls...I was on a treadmill at the Hampton Inn in Great Falls just a couple of weeks ago and pulled one of my calf muscles pretty bad. Thought I was going to have to drop out of the HIM that I was training for. I was running instead of biking because the wind was howling, as it often does in the High Line. I was up in Shelby the day before getting hailed on.

Great Falls looks like it would have a lot of fun places to run outside and bike too, wind permitting. Where is your first triathlon going to be held?

Edited by HaydenHunter 2016-07-01 5:48 PM

Don't even get my started on the wind here, Great Falls has thoroughly convinced me that Chicago got its nickname on a fluke. Running into a 40mph headwind is one of the most de-motivational things I can imagine, I swear sometimes it makes me run backwards.

It is being held at the water park downtown by the river. I can't even Imagine trying to finish this race right now, much less stepping up to that Ironman level.

I went for a run a couple hours after my swim today, my legs were ready to give up a mile in. I really don't know how I'm going to be able to convince my body to keep moving on race day.

Just race it to finish. My first triathlon (a sprint) featured a 450 yard swim that I breast stroked. There were people out there side paddling, dog paddling, backstroking (elementary and standard) in addition to those that were crawling. I went in the water toward the end and finished mid pack. There will be plenty of people out there doing what it takes just to come away with a finish.

As for the run, do the best you can. I walked more than I ran in the two triathlons I have done to date. That first sprint and the Half Ironman I just competed last Sunday.

You will get such a kick out of finishing and you can work to perfect the swim stroke for the next one you do. Want the truth? I was getting run over so much in the HIM that I switched to the breast stroke so that I could raise my head forward after every stroke. I breast stroked 95% of the 1.2 mile swim. I am the kind of person who could care less if someone laughs at my methods. Do what it takes...however ugly...and thank me later for the results and the thrill that it will bring.

So I did 26 miles on the stationary bike, followed by a 5k, and it hit me... I'm going to need some way to replace the calories burnt on race day, during the race. I don't drink "sports" drinks, but is it something I should consider for the event? I estimate I will burn 2500-3000 calories, how many of those should I aim to replace during the race?

Also, should I try to find one pair of shorts to do the whole event in, or will there be changing areas? I've got no body shame, but I think the government and my wife would frown at me getting naked in public.

Also, the training log on this website is the best. I like that I can keep track of what I've done.

Hi there Flabby,

I'm a newby looking at doing my first as well. I'm finding this book useful: https://www.amazon.com/Triathlon-Beginners-Everything-nutrition-moti... (Triathlon for Beginners by Dan Golding).

Might answer some of your questions.

The Joe Friel books, including the excellent "Your First Triathlon" and the classic "Triathletes Training Bible" will answer many of your questions.

As for nutrition, I am 6' tall and currently 198# and I was advised to take in 250 calories / hour during the long course Half Ironman. On a sprint Tri where you are only going to be out there for a couple of hours, you could probably make it without nutrition if you ate a decent pre-race meal. But you could fuel during the race also with GU or Clif Shots gels or some more solid form of same, such as Clif Bloks etc.

I made it easy. I took 10 GU packets, each containing 100 calories, put them in my clear bike water bottle, added water and marked off four portions, drinking one each hour. Nutrition and hydration combined. I also drank Gatorade from the aid stations.

As for the question on shorts, I have a pair of tri shorts (which have a small amount of padding for the bike). I wear those for sprint and olympic distance events. You have them on under your wetsuit and just keep them on through bike and run. They dry quicker than you would think. For the Half Ironman 56 mi bike ride, I went with my full on bike shorts, followed by running shorts. I did not wear the bike shorts under the wetsuit, which resulted in a lengthy first transition. But I didn't care. I wore sport underwear and just changed out of wetsut and into bike shorts in the middle of transition. No big whup. I would not advise going commando in transition, however. They tend to frown at that.