Saturday, May 28, 2011

Could I run a Triathlon?

I like to keep myself fit and healthy through a reasonable amount of regular exercise. However, I have mixed feelings about the idea of running a triathlon. On the one hand I think the athletes are foolish to subject their bodies to the strain of such an event, but I must also admit that I am envious of how fit they must be to be able to complete such a tough course without collapsing.

A colleague recently told me that he was entering into the Tri Athy event. This is billed as "The Perfect Introduction to Triathlon" because the relatively short course that involves a 400m Swim followed by a 13.6km Cycle and a 3.6km Run. I did give some consideration to joining him for the event, but then I chickened out at the end because I was not sure if I would be able for even this shortened version of a triathlon.

This morning I was visiting the gym and so I decided to do my own version of a mini triathlon to see how I would get on.
  1. I started by swiming 20 lengths of the pool which is equivalent to 500m. This took me about 17 minutes which I think is a reasonable pace. I swam crawl all the way and didn't stop at all, although I slowed down quite a bit nearing the end.
  2. Next I went for a cycle of about about 15km which took me slightly over 4o minutes. I was trying to be as close to triathlon conditions as possible, but I didn't run out of the gym onto my bike in my swimming gear. Instead I tried off properly and changed into my cycling gear. If it was a real triathlon, I think that the transition from swimming to cycling would be hard to do properly and I would certainly not relish the prospect of cycling in wet gear in Irish weather.
  3. I was feeling Next I ran a 6km jog around a nearby park which took me 36 minutes. I was wondering how I would be sure how far I was running. I used the My Tracks application on my phone to monitor my progress and a new version of the application was pushed out just this week. I was pleasantly surprised that with the new version a robotic voice informed me as I passed each kilometer marker and it gave me statistics about my running pace so I never had to look down ad the screen to monitor my progress.
At the end of all this I was quite tired, but I am happy to report that I was not close to collapsing. Perhaps with a bit more practice, I will feel able to tackle the introductory triathlon next year.

2 comments:

  1. "Perhaps with a bit more practice, I will feel able to tackle the introductory triathlon next year." Hey, everything in due time, eh? I guess if you put much will into it, exert regular efforts in keeping in tune, you wouldn't have problems competing next year.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You need extra efforts in order for you to stay fit. Joining triathlons can be a great idea. All I want is to maintain my health and fitness, since I'm into gymnastics.

    toddler gymnastics

    ReplyDelete