Dual Sport Week - Swim/Bike

Dock Transition Area at Start

I'm psyched! Today was the first time every that I exercised in two different sports on the same day. My training plan for this whole week is to work the two sport combinations and transitions. I'm starting out with shorter distances for each sport and will work my way up to the full distances. By week end I expect to be able to do the swim/bike combo and the bike/walk combo with full distances.

Today I began with the swim/bike combination because it's first in the race order. I like to practice things in the order I expect to do them. That way I develop a sense of timing and my brain and body get the feel for the sequences I want to perform. The swim to bike is also the most complex of my transitions so I wanted to try that first. I thought I might need to refine my approach and starting with it at the beginning of the week gives me time for tweeking.



Lawn Transition Area at Start

I did about 5 minutes of the swim (out to the first dock and back) which is about 1/3 of the full distance. I executed my transition to biking clothes and equipment. Then I biked about 2 miles which is 2/5ths of the full distance. It went really well and I didn't feel particularly tired.

The only glitch I had in the process was ending up with only one of my biking gloves. I even read through my checklist twice to make sure I had everything. Guess I need to change my list to say 2 gloves, 2 socks and 2 shoes! The transition did take me longer than I hoped. I wasn't able to time it precisely but from my overall time I estimate it took me more than 5 minutes. I may look at ways to trim that down a bit.

 

Here are some of the transition plans which worked well today:

Wear knee brace at start -  I wasn't sure if I'd like having a wet knee elastic. It didn't bother me at all and trying to put it on when my legs are wet might be a lot tougher.

Dry off with a towel - I decided to do this in order to put on biking shorts, socks and shoes. My assumption is that I need the padded shorts and socks to be comfortable on the bike ride. One way I could cut down on transition time is to ride without shorts. Then I'd only have to dry my feet and put on my socks and shoes. I may try that tomorrow.

Poised to Head out the Driveway

 

Drink water at each transition - Today I didn't take a bottle of water on my bike. Instead I took a big drink of water before I got on the bike. There will be an aid station with water in the transition area so I plan to drink from there at each transition. If it's a really hot day I may take a water bottle with me in addition.

Take the transitions at a normal pace - My plan is to be cautious about racing through the transitions. I can just see myself tripping and falling over an untied shoelace or something silly like that. I hope that I can pace myself to be efficient in my transitions without feeling rushed.

One problem I had was some abdominal pain toward the end of the bike ride. That led me to think about what to eat for breakfast on the morning of the triathlon. I plan to look into that.

In addition to trying out my transition approach, I also had a chance to swim with another swimmer in the water. Joe's workout for the day was doing the full triathlon. We timed it so we would start the swim together. As I expected he quickly passed me and I had plenty of empty water around me for the swim. As I turned around I could see that he was heading back as well. This gave me a heads up that he would pass me as we both headed back to our dock. I was able to manage my stroke alternations so that I was doing breast stroke each time he passed me and it worked well.

Today's swim got Joe thinking about changing the swim route. The current route goes through a thick bed of weeds. By August 5th they are likely to be even higher and thicker. You have to swim quite a ways out into the lake to get around them. When we swam toward the west instead of the east a couple of weeks ago there weren't any noticeable weeds. So he may change the route to go in that direction. This will make it harder to practice as there aren't convenient docks to mark the distance. But I'll be happy to do it if we can avoid weeds. They're oogie!