On Sunday, March 15th, I participated in the Harbor Athletic Club Dust the Rust Indoor Triathlon (sponsored by Endurance House). This was my first competitive event in the sport of Triathlon, and I had a great time, taking 2nd. There were about 14 total participants, so while it would have been nice to have some more competition, it did keep things moving smoothly.

The format of the event was a 10 minute swim, 30 minute bike and 15 minute run. You had to swim as many pool lengths, and run as many times around the indoor track as possible in the given time limit. The biking portion, which was done on the same Keiser M3 spinners I’ve been training on all off season, was based on how many miles the display showed after 30 minutes. Unfortunately, this isn’t very realistic, as the mileage shown is dependent on the how fast you could pedal, not on the amount of watts.

So while I was aware of this fact, I just didn’t feel like pedaling at 160+ RPM for 30 minutes. I’ve been training all season to push a harder gear at around 90 RPMs, so the high RPM game just wasn’t my thing. I made a suggestion that a more realistic measurement would be to use the average watts you are able to sustain over the 30 minute time frame. It’s not that I think this would have allowed me to do significantly better, but would be more representative of the actual biking event.

I also have some concern over the calibration of the bikes, both between the bikes at the club, and with the bikes I’ve been training on this off season. My baseline is usually around 90 RPM at gear 13 which produces approximately 230 watts (or so the display says). At the event, I was pushing gear 14 at 120 RPM producing 350-360 watts and it felt easier then the 230 watts I’m used to. So while my usual training bike might be off on the low end, these were definitly off on the high end. Maybe I’m too much of a stat junky?

However, the biking thing aside, I did have a really great time. This was partly do to how well I did on the swim and run portion of the event. I actually tied for 1st in the swim, completing 25 lengths or 625 yards in 10 minutes. This worked out to a 1:45 min/100m pace which is awesome for me. I’ve been working on 200m sets in training, and having a hard time maintaining that pace (after the first set), so keeping it for 625 yards is very satisfying. 625 yards is about 571 meters, so I definitely set a new personal best for the 500 meter distance. I feel as if the 1:45 min/100m pace is attainable for my triathlon in June as I have 12 weeks of training left.

I also did well in the run, completely 30 laps or 2.5 miles on the indoor track which is a 10mph average. Again, this was a personal best, although not a sustainable speed. I think I did the first mile in 5:30, which is the fastest I’ve run, albeit on a flat indoor track. Training with a 1% grade on the tread mill really paid off.

Personal Results (2nd place overall):