Baby & First Tri

First of all welcome to BT and to the sport of triathlon! To answer your question.....maybe, probably, would be best if you could get outside. My wife and I have a 3 1/2 yr old and a 7 month old and she is trying to get back in shape and do a couple of races this year as well. She is in much the same position as you are (for example the nice shiney new bike I bought for her a month ago has yet to see the outside), what we try to do (and it isn't always successful) is schedule times where she can get her workouts in around my workout schedule (sounds very selfish I know but this is my job!).

My advice is try to get your Significant Other to watch the little tyke for a few hours a week while you go train. Another option is ask a relative or neighbor if they would mind watching him/her while you go get in some training. It takes alot of scheduling but it can be done.

Good Luck!

It sure better!!  I started in Nov 2006 and, because of similar issues, despite training more than 800 miles since I started, I have never been more than 50 feet from where I started (except for 1 outdoor ride where I fell trying to unclip).  Swim is in 50 foot pool, bike is on trainer, and run is on treadmill! Your #'s are very similar to mine, so I'm hoping they translate into some kind of success.  I am taking  a mental health day Wednesday to finally bike outside, I'll let you know how it goes.

Hi there... your times look great, I'd bet you'd finish with no problem.  That said, it would still behoove you to get outside.  Wind, hills, that sort of thing... are hard to simulate indoors.

I've done my winter training on the treadmill, and the trainer, and finally got outside for a run last Sunday.  Completely different... the loop I run has a large hill on it, which the treadmill did not prepare me for.  As a result, I have very achy quads at the moment.

Even if you can't do most of your training outside, I highly recommend getting out as much as you can to more closely simulate race conditions. 

The jogging stroller is a great way to negative split your times! I'm a father of a 4 month old, my wife and I ran this weekend, we did 18kms together (I pushed the chariot), then she fed and stuff in the car while I tacked on an addition 6kms. Seemed to work well. I felt super strong without the chariot at the end, I look at pushing it as great training, not to mention I absolutely love pushing my daughter in it.

Your times look good, are you doing the running on a track or treadmill? if it's a track you shouldn't have an issue transferring to the out of doors, but if you're treadmill, you need to log some outside mileage.

The biking time is good as well, but on a stationary (lifecycle), spin-bike, or your bike? I find that the hardest transition is biking indoors to outdoors personally. Doing the Spinerval DVD's on my bike (on a stationary trainer), really seemed to help my transition for basement to pavement last year.

As others have mentioned, it's tough with a baby to find hours to train, you have to make sure the hours that you do train are worthwhile. It sounds like you're making them count. Just try to vary your workouts up so that you're not going for a PB everytime swim or run. Do sprints, intervals, base sessions, etc.

brad.

I live in the area too, and you'll probably see some folks with wetsuits but it's such a short swim I wouldn't worry too much about it. I know last year in May at the Yargo sprint (weekend after My First Tri) there were some folks wearing them but the water was actually warmer than the air at the beginning of the race.

I'm also in a similar situation because I have an almost 5yo and an 18 month old. Except for swimming, a lot of my training is close to home. I'm lucky enough to have a bike trainer and a treadmill at home so I can do those 2 at home if I need to; although I enjoy training outside much more! Do you have someone you can swap sitting with? Can your husband watch the baby for a couple of hours one day during the weekend? Do you have a program like Mother's Morning Out that you can take the baby to? (I do this every Wednesday so I can go run)

Good luck! I'm sure you'll do great!

Mindy