Category Archives: Triathlon

I haven’t written about my cycling in quite a while, and my training blog is dead at the moment — I haven’t posted there in over a month.  That’s largely because the blog was meant as a way to record my adventures in triathlon training, and those adventures have stopped for the moment.  I’m still riding, but I’m not running, and only if I’m running does it make sense to me to swim.  I’ve just had so much trouble getting over my most recent running injury, that I’m wondering if running is ever going to work for me, or if I’m willing to be patient enough to make it work.  My injury from last fall has gotten steadily better over the last couple months, and right now it appears to be gone, but I’m not entirely sure it won’t come back if I try to run again.  I did sign up for a couple triathlons for later this spring, and I can still train for them, although I won’t have time to train well, but I can’t decide if I want to.

So I’m in a holding pattern for the moment, waiting for the desire to do one thing or the other to surface and make itself known.  My feelings about bike races versus triathlons are still the same: I think I would like triathlons better because they are more individual — I can race against my own best time — whereas bike races are very much about group dynamics and whether I can keep up with everybody else.  I also like the idea of being proficient in more than one sport and using different sets of muscles with each one.  On the other hand, triathlon training is very time-consuming, more so than training for bike races alone.  Even if I train the same number of hours each week for triathlons as I do for bike races, it still takes up more time, since the total number of workouts is higher and the training involves trips to the pool, which means some extra driving time.

I’m also really, really bad at doing strength training and core exercises, which I desperately need to keep me in good running shape and to be a good swimmer.  I think a weak core is the main cause of my last running injury, and I’ve tried lately to do core exercises, but I just can’t seem to make myself keep it up.  I tell people that I’m really, really undisciplined when it comes to exercise, and they laugh at me, but it’s true — if it’s not 100% fun, I don’t do it.  Core exercises are not 100% fun.

So that’s that.  As I see them, here are my options for this year:  1. pick up the triathlon training again and give it another go, 2. stick with the bike racing and just deal with the fact that I’m not fond of how bike races are run, or 3. ride my bike mainly as a recreational rider and race only if I really, really want to.  I’m training right now as though I’m going to do #2, although I don’t plan to race until a little later in the season than usual. I suppose I’ll keep doing that until I decide to do something else.

I went on a really great, if totally gross, group ride today.  It’s the 50th birthday of the local bike shop owner, so he arranged a ride to celebrate.  About 30 of us did the beach loop, which is a 50-mile trip down to the Long Island Sound and back.  I had a lot of fun, but what made the ride gross was the fact that the roads were thoroughly wet from rain and melting snow, so pretty much from the first minute out, every one of us was covered in mud.  Every time we rode through a puddle, which was often, I got a spray of muddy, gritty water in my face and all over my clothes.  I know better than I’d like about the taste of mud.  We stopped at a coffee shop about halfway through the trip to get something to eat, and we must have been quite a sight — 30 wet, muddy, hungry riders invading the small, clean, quiet place in search of food.  It’s all just part of the fun of late winter riding, I suppose.

Last night was my last race of the season — there are others I could do, but I feel as though I’ve done enough, and I have no desire to do any more.  It was a fine race.  It went as it usually did — I rode hard, stayed with the pack the entire way, and finished near the back, trying to stay out of people’s way.  Since I have no hope of winning these things, I don’t even try.  I’m there for the workout and the fun.

It’s been an odd year for riding.  I started out the year hoping that I might do a triathlon, but I had to give up that plan when I injured my foot.  My continuing desire to do a triathlon, though, meant that I became very aware of all the things I don’t like about bike racing.  I allowed myself to feel dissatisfied in a way I hadn’t before.  So even though I rode in lots of bike races, I was always thinking that I really wanted to do something else and that my focus would soon be elsewhere.  This is not a great mindset to have when competing in races, and I never did all that well (although I didn’t embarrass myself either — I did respectably).

Now my foot is all healed and I’m running and swimming as well as riding, and I still feel odd because I’m training in all these sports, but the first triathlon I’ll do won’t be until late spring next year, and it feels so far off and not at all real.

But at least at this point I can concentrate on one thing instead of feeling all scattered — or rather I can concentrate on three things, the three triathlon sports.  In running, I simply need to keep from injuring myself, first, and also work on endurance.  I can add in some speed work later on when my endurance has improved.  In swimming, I need to work on technique and endurance.  It looks like I may be able to attend a master’s swim class at least once a week this fall, and that should help tremendously.

In cycling I feel a little more uncertain at the moment, as my basic skills and endurance are there already, and the triathlons I’ll be competing in aren’t long, but it’s too early to be working on speed.  I suppose I just need to maintain my cycling fitness for now, and keep from getting burnt out on the sport.

After the race last night we had a little end-of-season party, and the race organizer gave out awards for the top 10 finishers in the series competition.  Hobgoblin got first place!

I just got home from another fun Tuesday night race.  In spite of the fact that I am officially burnt out on racing, I still enjoy the Tuesday night races, largely because I have no hope whatsoever of doing well, and so there is no pressure.  I just hang out in the back, watch what is going on, and get a good workout.  I like hanging out in the very back these days because from there I can see clearly what the people up front are doing as they ride around the corners.  That way I keep an eye on where Hobgoblin is — and he’s generally up front somewhere, usually winning or in the top five.  He’s leading the series by a ridiculous number of points.  At this point, I’m much more interested in how he does than how I do.

So my triathlon training is going pretty well, all things considered.  My feet don’t protest the running too much, although I run only a very little way.  I started with a mile and am all the way up to a mile and a quarter!  Yes, it will take me quite a while before I can run a marathon, but I hope to get there one day.  The doctor tells me I can increase my mileage by 10% each week or 15% at most, assuming I have no serious pain, so you can see how slow the whole process is.

But the big news in my training is that I am now taking swimming lessons.  I can get myself across a pool, and can even do it a decent number of times, but I can’t do it with anything like proper technique, so I decided to get myself some lessons before my bad habits get any further ingrained.  My teacher, who was very patient in the face of my occasional incomprehension, gave me some drills to do, and a workout to do on my own, and I’m so happy to have some direction, instead of just floundering around trying to figure out the right way to swim but not really getting it.

My goal is to run and swim three times a week and ride my bike four times a week, or perhaps three if I do long rides.  All that is easy to do right now, although it will be more of a challenge when school starts.  I had my eye on a September triathlon I thought I might be able to do, but I don’t think I’ll be ready for the running part of it.  But that’s okay — if all goes well, I’ll compete in triathlons beginning in the late spring, and that will give me plenty of time to figure out what I’m doing.