Welcome back from the holiday weekend for those readers who honored veterans yesterday on Memorial Day and my UK friends who had a bank holiday yesterday. This is a short work week here as well as we have Thursday off for Ascension Day and then I will be working from London on Friday.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I finally pulled the trigger and registered for my first triathlon, the Geneva International Triathlon, which takes place on July 19th. There are multiple course lengths but as this is my first, I opted for the short course.
500 meter swim – 20 km bike – 5 km run
or
.3 mile swim – 12.4 mile bike – 3.1 mile run
When I glance at these distances none of them seem overwhelming, not even the swim. However, I know that the difficulty comes in asking my legs to run even 3 miles after they’ve kicked my way through an open water swim and pedaled up a challenging bike course.
Therefore, after consulting multiple websites and starting to read Your First Triathlon I kicked my butt into full gear last week. I don’t have a full plan in place yet and clearly need to add biking into the rest of my weekly workouts but for now, I’m happy to have logged some solid run and solid swims last week. I already know that this week will include a training ride with Charlie in London and next weekend Bo is helping me practice clipping in (que the fear) while we enjoy a long ride in Geneva! It doesn’t hurt that I have two training partners for my triathlon even though neither of them are in Geneva. Charlie is doing a triathlon in June and I’ve loved being able to text her questions back and forth as she is ahead of me on the training journey. If you head over to Theodora’s blog today you can see that she just started training for her first 70.3. Her workouts inspire me to push through and wake up even when I don’t want to and we often text each other updates from workouts we dread like pool swims.
So, without further adieu, here’s a recap of last week’s workouts:
Monday: Rest day
Tuesday: AM: 1800 meter swim including 50 meter race in the middle PM: 2 hours of music power yoga at InnerCityYoga
Wednesday: 3.5 mile trail run including hill repeats with Renaud
Thursday: 2000 meter swim including 100 meter race in the middle
Friday: Intense track speed workout with my friend and running coach, Renaud. My plan was a 1 mile warm-up followed by 8 x 400 meter repeats at 1:40 pace followed by 1:20 jogging before a 1 mile cool down. More details to come on this workout later this week as I have an awesome app to share with you and tips to figure out what your speed pace should be!
Saturday: 5 mile shakeout run through Rome with my friend Raj
Sunday: Walking approximately 6 miles through Rome
Your turn – If you’ve done a triathlon before, what is your #1 tip for a rookie?
I’m interested to see what tips you get- I’m doing my first sprint triathlon on Sunday!
Good luck Katie! I will share some tips with you if you’d like via email that my friend sent me yesterday. I really recommend reading the book I shared in last night’s post.
Practice open water swims- very different from pool
Practice transitions. T1 is hard to practice, but t2 is easy. Get used to that mush leg feeling!
Have fun!
Thanks Maureen! I am definitely going to try and do a few open water swims. My idea was to have my bike setup near the lake so I can practice running to it, taking off my wetsuit, and clipping in. 🙂
Amazing! Way more mileage than my 70.3 training. You’re going to crush!
Thanks! 🙂
Open water swim practice. Also try it with a wetsuit if there is a chance you will need one on the day. I found my first wetsuit open water swim was awful as I had a panic attack due to the tightness of the suit. Once I practiced a bit it was fine but you dont want the first time to be on race day.
Good luck!
Thanks Orla – that’s a great idea! I am hopefully buying a wetsuit this weekend so I’ll have all of June and July to practice!
I’ve just done my second and have my third planned for 2 week time. My tip would be to try and do all the courses (for me the specific is the bike course) to feel prepared. That helped me calm nerves then I could just enjoy the event and try for the best time I could do.
Good luck!
That’s a great idea Angie! As the bike course is “closed” I am hoping to do it in June!
To follow up on the wet suit – not sure what the rules are for your tri, but the ones here have specific temperatures for when you can/can’t wear them. I never practiced with one, as the race information told me it was unlikely I’d be able to wear one come game day (based on previous race day temps). Unless the water is going to be super chilly, you can probably skip the wet suit (too tight, makes you panic, etc) for the swim.
When I practicing my T2 – I would have my bf set up my shoes, visor, etc while I was biking and then I would come in to “the transition” and practice getting off, unclipping the shoes, changing into running shoes, etc, and then go for a 5K ish run. I did this several times – made it more familiar on race day.
Tri training is a REALLY nice change of pace from full or half marathon training!
I’m curious about where you went running in Rome? I used to live there and have spent a ton of time in the city and Italy in general, and running around the city just doesn’t happen. They do have big open parks in the city, though, and that’s where everyone actually exercises. I just can’t imagine taking a running route throughout the city, but I’m curious to hear about your experience.
Lindsay when we were in Rome we ran super early which meant there was far less traffic. We ran from Vatican City along the river and across the bridge through some of the neighborhoods. Running on the cobblestones wasn’t fun or easy but the views were great and small meandering streets were so fun to explore!
Yes they are, but they’re not really running streets. I admire your dedication to get up so early and run, though! Good thing it wasn’t up a hill or to the last hotel you stayed at in Rome! I remember reading how rough of a time you had the last time you were in Rome. Based on the past few posts about Rome, seems like you visited a completely different city! Glad you were finally able to appreciate the best city and country in the world!