Wow. What an experience.
The anticipation. The comradery. The excitement. The relief. The amazing feeling of satisfaction that I gave something my all after 6 months of training, and crossed the line running 6 minutes faster than what is predicted! Awesome!!
But, I also learnt a lot, which was kind of the point of this first tri. Below is probably one of my longest posts, but I wanted to convey the feelings, learnings and emotions going on during tri day.
I learnt that there are lot of other beginners or rather first timers taking part in our sport. Rachel found the same at her first one a few weeks ago. Amongst the more toned triathletes there is often a great field of beginners in the same boat as ourselves. Asking the same questions, we’re asking. Wondering if they’re doing it right too.
So I’ll try to break down my learnings from start to finish to help those setting out on their first triathlon.
The night before
I probably triple checked (it is a tri…) everything was in order for the 5am start the next morning. I had my porridge & fruit ready. My go to smoothie was blended and in the fridge. Even my pants that I was going to wear en route to the event were there waiting for me to jump into without waking a sleeping family.
I actually had a pretty good nights sleep, but as soon as I woke, 5 minutes before my alarm, I was ready to go. No nerves, just slight anticipation at this stage. Triple checking and checking again that everything was in the van ready to go. Were my tyres pumped? Did I have juice in my bike bottles. Is the spare inner tube & leavers in my under seat bag. Everything was in order…off I went.
Arriving at the eventsite, I saw lots of dreamy bikes. I saw lots of people that looked considerably younger than myself. I saw what looked like real racers. After collecting my race numbers, I then also saw a load of people that, well, looked a little bit like me. Newbies. It seemed we all flocked together to the same racking posts and were having some good banter between us. But we were all asking the same questions;
- Where does the sticker go on my bike?
- Do you pin your race number to your shirt under your wetsuit (if you didn’t bring a race belt)
- Which way do you hang your bike?
- How much space have you actually got?
- Where’s the toilet? A common question it would appear as people aimed to prepare themselves for a 90 odd minutes of exercise.
The questions went on.
Some of these questions were more obvious to others, but what was great was that some barriers were broken in that we all realised we’re not the only newcomer to this sport.
My advice here? Just ask. Everyone including the marshals were incredible friendly and approachable and what could have been a nerve racking start, was actually quite a fun experience!
Bowels emptied and wetsuited up, we headed to the water for the briefing.
The Swim
The briefing was 15 minutes pre race. They went through a few rules, course layouts, swim routes and niceties. A few nervous smiles but after a show of hands, it would appear that 50% of those here had also entered their first triathlon.
Noticing the briefing was leading into getting the race underway, I realised I hadn’t stretched. I tried doing some before it was my turn to get into the water, but in reality, I didn’t do enough – testament to some sore muscles heading into the run! So make sure you give yourself some time to stretch properly pre race, something I hadn’t factored into all of my pre race planning!
The swim for me was great. I was in my element. The experience of catching up to people and bumping into their legs with your hands or face at some point was actually quite exhilarating. By the first buoy my practice in spotting was working. I was looking for the marker, but also the lines other people were taking to see where I needed to go to get past them. It was awesome!
After the race, my parents who had come down to support had heard some lady spouting off to the marshal that she’d been hit in the face with the swim. Apparently she was quite angry. There’s no telling if that was me or any one of the other hundreds of competitions, as I’m pretty sure I had at some point hit, kicked, punched or body slammed into one or two people whilst swimming. So please don’t anyone think that it’s being done intentionally. If you watch the pros…look for the close contact. If you’re really concerned about it, move out of the way. Pick an outside line and let those swimming faster than you go by.
We had a short run to the bike transition. This is the bit I hadn’t practiced enough. It was a beautiful clear day, but the water was damn cold and we needed to add a layer before setting off on the bikes through the beautiful forest. My body was fine, but my feet…I couldn’t get them in my bike shoes for they were just too cold. Judging by my split times it looks like I spent 5/6 minutes between exiting the swim and leaving on the bike. I probably put on too many layers which took a while and spent too long warming my feet up… lessen learned for next time.
I was also quite fortunate as I was one of the first to racket bike, I was able to put my on the very end of the rack, so easy to spot. I saw another about half way down, with a fluorescent towel hanging over there bars. Do what you can to make it as obvious as possible to fin your bike!
The bike
Not much to say here other than I’m so pleased I’d worked so hard on my interval sessions in the gym this winter. We were met with a short sharp climb about 1km into the race. It was a great way to warm up and get the blood pumping and I had a few people in my sights to overtake up that hill.
Settling down into the long slog of it, I was feeling comfortable. Sure there were a number of people that flew past on their race bikes, but I was racing my own race. Well actually, I had a great race with another guy and a girl. The three of us were trading places throughout the bike section which really pushed each other on. The guy came up to me at the end to say how much it helped spur him on when he was slowing down and it did the same for me. It’s amazing what a bit of competition does for you.
Honestly the comradery was awesome.
Two things I had been practicing and I think helped quite a bit here… I drank lots and I went into a high speed leg spin before getting into transition. Although the sea water was freezing in the swim, the sun was coming up and feeling pretty hot already, so keeping hydrated for me before heading into the run was really well practiced. And the leg spin… About 500metres or so before transition I slowly worked into a high gear to get my legs really spinning to wake them up a bit for the run. It’s also supposed to move around the lactic acid in your legs, but this definitely seemed to loosen them up a bit before I hit the run path.
Bike to Run
This bit was pretty good.
Seeing my little boy holding up a placard of “yay daddy” with a drawing of a couple of dinosaurs really helped to spur me on from transition of bike to run.
Family was cheering, I was excited. My legs hurt, but their smiling cheering faces spurred me on.
Out of transition, I kept going.
It got warm on the run. The sun felt the hottest it’d been all year, though in truth was probably only 10 degrees! The route was dry and we had no wind and no rain. Perfect!
On the return leg of the run, there was a big rugby player lad, who was struggling a little bit. He had amazing enthusiasm but looked like he needed a bit of a push. I shared some of my gummy bears, we had a high five and carried on!
He found me after the race and said how great that was and that it kicked him in to finishing the last few km’s. Nice. People are awesome.
Looking back at my time on strava, you can clearly see where I hit a wall towards the end with a serious dip in time, but then the last km when I could see the finish and my family, I’d run the fastest I’d ever run. Across the whole run, I averaged 1 minute quicker, per kilometre than I had ever done in practice, so my plan of training at 80% worked… I gave the other 20 on race day.
The Finish
Seeing my boy (and rest of family) smiling and cheering as I came running back to the finish line was one of my most proudest moments of life so far. The image of his face with his cheeky little grin has etched into my brain and is something I’ll never forget. The sheer joy on his face when he saw me collect my finishers medal was awesome and I think projected the same emotions I was going through over that line. What an incredible morning, and it wasn’t even 9am yet!
With my boy, we headed to the ice cream hut and picked up a couple of cornets. Not something I ever encourage my boy to normally do, but today was different. I could barely sit as my leg muscles were so tight, but we kicked back in the sunshine and enjoyed our ice cream, job done.
