While I’ve said it in the past, I will say it again — and continue to say it. I love doing races put on by Coach Joe (Experience Triathlon).
As always, my triathlon season starts with the ET Indoor Tris. I was excited to see how the training with Ryan would pay off in the pool.
Prior to the race, while I was waiting for my ‘eyes’, someone that had been a volunteer the prior year found me in the locker room. He told me how the prior year he had been nervous about the swim. But because of seeing me compete, he had gone from struggles in a 10 min swim (Feb 2022) to doing at least 3 Halfs before the end of 2022. I’ve forgotten exactly what his race schedule was for 2023, but I believe it included at least 5 half/full Ironman races in total.
For the swim (10m), I had intended to go with bilateral breathing for the entire time. However, I was only able to keep it going for 100 yd. Even still, I did manage to add 2 lengths to my best distance.
For the bike, I lost at least a minute because of how long it takes to get up->change->get down to bikes. Even still, it was a strong bike, and I could have gotten close to 10 mi if I hadn’t lost that time.
As always, the treadmill run is the hardest for me. While it wasn’t a great run, it also wasn’t the ‘choppy’ run that it has been in the past. I believe that part of that was I had changed to water for the run (vs. Skratch/Gatorade as in the past).