First triathlon!

Want to know how a runner would do in a tri?

In 2008 after I completed my first Half Marathon and First Marathon the same friend that had a bad influence on me convincing me to do a half marathon with her convinced me to do a Sprint Triathlon with her.  A triathlon was not something I wanted to do but I didn't want to be left out of all my friends conversations that were sure to center on Triathlon training and the Triathlon race so I signed up to do the race.  I had a day job and wasn't able to make the 45-minute drive every Thursday afternoon to the lake to do OWS' with my friends.  I didn't really have any pool that I could get to and I didn't have a skinny tired bike so I decided I would do my 1/2 marathon training plan to be in the best running shape I could be and forget about doing any swim of bike training.  

Swim: I didn't know what my swim pace was but I think I had it about right because I passed about 5-6 people on the swim and only had about 3-4 people pass me.  I started out in the freestyle swim but that only lasted for about 25 yards then I switch to my favorite stroke with is the side stroke.  I could swim really hard and didn't have to worry about my heavy breathing because my fave was always out of the water and I could breathe freely.  I was far enough back in the swim starter (serpentine pool swim with swimmers starting ever 5-10 seconds) that one of my friends was coming through the finish line about the time I got out of the water.  Another friend had started just behind me on the swim.  I think he was one of the swimmers that passed me.  I was 3-4 min/100yd on the swim.  My rank was 146 out of 235 overall and 90out of 133 in my age group.  

Bike: It was a really slow transition.  I was putting a dry Under Armor compression shirt on over a wet body and everything stuck.  I did the same thing with socks. I was putting on running shoes and tieing the laces took for every with cold wet fingers. It took about two minutes to get ready to bike. coming out of T1 was a disaster.  The skinny tired bike that I had borrowed for the race had clipless pedals but I didn't have bike shoes so I had to switch out the pedals for platform pedals.  I had a hard time getting on of the pedals to thread back in and I didn't want to double thread the pedal on someone's high-end racing treat bike so I went until it got tight and stopped.  The 2nd crank out of the transition that pedal that had got stuck popped on flew off the bike.  I swerved nearly crashing and nearly taking out a runner that was finishing the race.  I had to run back into transition to get the bike tools with my gear in transition and come back to put the pedal back on.  I got the pedal in right away with no problems but after a terribly slow swim and losing 10 minutes to a bike technical I had zero chance of beating any of my friends.  When I got back on the bike I rode as hard as I could to try to make up for lost time.  I was passing people like they were standing still.  I caught up with my friend that passed me on the swim and passed about 35 other people.  I hadn't been a bike for years and had never training for any type of cycling byt averaged a 21.5 MPH on the bike. I was 168 out 235 on the bike and 107 out 133 in my AG due to the 10 minutes lost with the pedal falling off.  If I would have taken 10 minutes off my time I would have been about a top 10 overall bike leg.

Run: I had never run off a bike before and had way overdone things on the bike so when my feet hit the pavement it was all I could do to not fall flat on my face.  The legs were pure jello.  I didn't know how I could walk let alone run.  Two of my friends saw me coming out of T2 (they way already done with the race).  They yelled the exact encouragement that I needed so instead of just giving up and just jogging the run I did my best to run.  My legs were so trashed that I had to mentally force my feet to pick up, for my knees to bends, etc.  My legs were dead legged so I was mentally trying to get my legs to move in the best form possible.  I was passing grey-haired women and others who running looked quite slow.  But I did not feel like I was running well and was sure my run time would be back of the pack.   When I looked up the results I saw my run time was more than two minutes over my open 5k times.  I was surprised to see that I had the 2nd fastest run time of everyone in the entire even.  I was even faster on the run than my friend at the race who held his school record for the 1600m run. 

I was number 2 out of 235 on the run and number 1 out of 133 in my age group. 

I finished about 59/235 overall and 45 out of 133 in my age group.    So despite being back of the pack on the swim and even further back on the bike due to a peddal falling off the bike, I finished around the top 25% over-all.   Even though I hadn't been a bike for 2+ years before the race I was able to cycle well.  There seems to be a lot of crossover from running to cycling.  Swimming don't appear to have much crossover to running.  If you don't know how to swim it doesn't matter how strong your lungs and endurance are you are going to be slow. 

I wore Speedo Jammer tunks, goggle, and a swim cap that I had bought the night before the race on the swim.  On the bike, I wore a compression shirt I had also bought the night before the race.  I wore my running shoes with socks. I had a high-end cardon street bike for the race with platform peddal and toe clips.