hmmm, i'm bored. i think i'll do a triathlon

actually, my thought process was more like, "i'm not playing ultimate this weekend. WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO WITH ALL THAT SPARE TIME?" such is how i came to do a sprint triathlon on my own on saturday.

i didn't even know how to spell 'triathlon' correctly before last week, let alone the distances involved in one. thanks to wikipedia, i discovered that a sprint tri, the shortest of the official tri's, is a 0.5 mile (750m) swim, 12.4 mile (20k) bike, 3.1 mile (5k) run. these all seemed short to me by themselves, but i suppose stringing them all together might be a different story.

nevertheless, i set out with the mindset that i'd go for a nice easy swim, do my "regular" 20-mile bike ride, and then see how long i could last on the run. i wasn't about to brave the long island sound sans wetsuit, and i wasn't about to blow $200 on a wetsuit, so i opted to do the swim at the yale gym. unfortunately, this meant i couldn't start my triathlon until 10am, when the gym opened on weekends. lame. and, of course, i overslept and had to prep my bike, so i began the whole shi-bang around 10:45.

SWIM: ~750m, 15min
basement pool (25m). felt fine. wasn't trying to go fast. had to share the lane with some annoying guy doing the break stroke straight down the middle of the lane. could have swum more, but didn't want to push it quite yet...

Transition: ~15min - rinsed off, changed, put on bike cleats
i neglected to consider how long it would take to transition from swimming to biking. i could have sped up the process by brining my bike clothes down to the basement pool with me, but the locker room down there sketches me out. next time i think i'll do that in the interest of time, however. not included in this time (rather in the biking time that follows), is a quick stop by my apt to drop off my "casual" clothes & shoes & bike lock.

BIKE: 20 miles, ~1.5 hours
route: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1134873
except i missed the turn onto New Rd, and stayed on Ives until Ridge, to Mt. Carmel, which shortens the route by ~0.3mi. not that anybody's counting. also stopped in the middle to fix my seat for ~5-10 min. annoying, but probably saved my ass in the end. felt good!

Transition: ~5 min - changed out of chami shorts, put on running shoes

RUN: 2.7 miles, 22 min (~8:10 pace)
legs felt like lead. could have run farther, but was really thirsty. only had one small water bottle of water on the bike ride. by this time it was after 1:00 and hot. maybe i should have stuck to the sprint bike distance...

goals for the future: work on running after biking. hydrate properly -- get a bigger water bottle for my bike, get an additional water bottle mount, get a camel back, or place water along the route.