For Matthias

After I finished up my first season of Triathlon last Fall, a friend of mine asked me what I had learned. I never did formulate a good reply to his query. With one race under my belt this year and my next races looming on the horizon, I thought I should take a few minutes to answer his question.

Going into Triathlon last year, I knew that I was very weak in the water. I had really just learned to swim a few months before my first race. My form was awful and still not stellar to this day. I also knew that I was pretty strong on the run and that running off the bike seemed to come naturally to me. However, it was my weakness on the bike that really surprised me. I had been mountain biking for many years and while I was not a powerful mountain biker, I thought my experience in the saddle would translate to the road more so than it did.

This fact really became obvious after my second Triathlon. I did much better in this race than I had in my first race. I passed a few people on the bike but also got passed by several people. When I looked at my results and compared them to some other people (arguably not something one should necessarily do), I noticed that there was a 78 year old man whose bike split was 37.56 compared to my 38.45. How was it that this 78 year old man had a faster bike split than me. Sure, I was 30 seconds faster than him on the run, nearly 10 minutes faster on the run, and had faster transitions. But his bike split was faster than mine. After looking at those results, I thought, "Am I really that slow on the bike?"

After a couple more Triathlons, it really sunk in that, yes, I am really that slow on the bike. I was constantly being passed by men and women of all ages. It was interesting and slightly annoying. Not that I am necessarily competing with the entire rest of the field. But I want to perform well and I want to get to the finish line faster than as many people as possible. After all, it is a race. In the end, I know that there will always be people faster than me and always people slower than me. It is not really that big a deal. But it is a goal to work towards.

To remedy my weakness on the bike, I have been doing lots of cycling. Twice a week, Melissa and I meet up with the rest of the gang at Richmond Cycling Corporation for a 1 hour class. We are learning technique as well as gaining fitness. In addition, my training team does a Saturday AM ride also at Richmond Cycling Corporation. I also had a bike fit this year which has helped enormously. I am getting a much more efficient pedal stroke and am more comfortable on the bike.

I am working on my other disciplines as well. I continue to do a coached swim once a week as well as another pool session on my own. Plus I am running 3 times a week including a weekly coached track practice. So far, I am enjoying the training very much and I look forward to seeing some better race results this year. It will only be my second year in Triathlon so I am not expecting to see vast improvements but I do expect some incremental improvement when compared to last year. Plus, this year I will be learning a new skill-racing in a wetsuit.

Finally, there are a few other small things I learned. I prefer bananas to energy bars. My pre-race smoothie should not contain pineapple because it makes me burp a lot during the swim. Vanilla flavored Hammer Gel seems to agree with me and be my food of choice while training and racing. Endurolytes and water seem preferable to other drinks such as Gatorade, etc while on the run. Lemon flavored HEED works well for me on the bike. This year I am going to remember to take a gel a few minutes before the swim start.

One other thing I also learned is that I am having a blast training and racing!