First Race of the Year - Life Time Fitness Indoor Triathlon

Well I did my first race of the year Sunday morning. It was an "Indoor Triathlon" so it was a little different than your typical outdoor race and something that I had never done before. An indoor triathlon is based on time rather than distance ‐ meaning you receive points for going further in a specific period of time, not going faster over a fixed distance. Participants are graded on a curve. The furthest distance in each category gets the most points (actual number is based on total participants), the shortest receives 1 point, and your "score" for the discipline is based on the points you achieve. All three disciplines count equally toward your final score.

The total event was 75 minutes: 10 minutes in the pool, a 10‐minute transition, 30 minutes on a spin bike, a 5‐minute transition and then 20 minutes on a treadmill. Transition times are fixed between events and do not count toward scores.

After 12 weeks of training I was ready to get a race under my belt. I wanted to treat this as a training session, since the times were short, but also wanted to see how I measured up against others in competition. Well I did 16.5 laps in the pool, biked for 15.9 miles and then ran 2.65 miles on the treadmill. That was good for 8th place out of 31 men. Not too bad. Before I get to congratulating myself on a top ten finish though, I only actually placed 12th out of 64 entries. There were four women who actually finished 3,4,8, and 9 overall. Wow!!!

Overall it was a great experience and a great way to get the season started. I've still got lots of room to improve. Shantel and Macen didn't make the trip since it was in a gym and we didn't know how we could keep Macen occupied and out of the pool and off the machines while I was racing. So no pictures this time.

Next up is the Brew to Brew 44 mile relay run from Kansas City, KS to Lawrence, this weekend with 5 other guys from my class. Right now they are calling for snow here on that day and I'm scheduled to run 2 legs for a total of 10 miles. Should be fun.