2013: Tri-ing something new

[marathondan]

So, as previously announced, 2013 will be a year of an Olympic distance triathlon rather than a marathon. Whilst I love marathons, I can’t help thinking that multisport is a healthier way of life than only plodding. I’m not giving up marathons by any means, but I really want to give this a go. And given my total lack of ability at cycling or swimming, I need to put some time into it, so marathon training has to get the boot, this year at least.

A life-changing development to report is that my wife has dragged me kicking and screaming into the 21st century, with the surprise Christmas gift of a Forerunner 910XT. I’ve never run with a GPS in my life, but now I’ve got it, I suspect I’ll never be without it. This one is designed for triathlon, so has all the setups for the different disciplines at the touch of a button. It will also count your swimming stroke rate, and measure distance in an indoor pool without a satellite (presumably by noting when your arm stops moving; I haven’t tried it yet).

Triathlon seems to be all about the gear, so I will start to personify this stuff to avoid materialism madness. Hence the Forerunner will be known as Malcolm (Malcolm XT). The other major piece of stuff required is a bike. There’s only one suitable name for my bike: Rusty. You may recall that I bought this antique, dating from sometime in the 80s, on eBay for less than the price of a pair of running shoes. Rusty is a Raleigh Stratos, which sounds pretty butch, but cycling provides such a ready supply of double entendres that this particular Rusty will be female. She’s been ridden hard by a succession of heartless men over the years, and now has loose joints and some of her teeth are missing. I’d like to think I’ll lavish TLC on her, and treat her how she really deserves, but the reality is that I’ll probably use and abuse her just as cruelly. But if she can handle it, I’ll stick with her, and take her places she thought she might never see again.

So yes, at least for now, I’m going to reject the received wisdom of spending money on a better bike to make my endurance sport easier. The point of endurance sport is that it’s meant to be hard work. If Rusty can cover 25 miles without falling apart, she’s good enough for this year at least. It doesn’t matter how much slower she is than the competition, because actually I’m only competing with myself.

Despite the tripling of disciplines to be training for, I’m sticking with my policy of only training three times a week. Basically, I don’t really want a hobby that I have to do more often than that. Unless I feel like it, of course. So how, I hear you ask, am I going to train for three sports in only three sessions a week?

The mantra for my marathon training has long been Less Is More ™. My patented system for triathlon training is going to be The Trick Is The Brick ™. I won’t patronise you by explaining that a brick is a dual-discipline back-to-back session, i.e. swim + bike or bike + run. (Oh sorry, I just have.) To get the most out of my sessions, all swim and bike training will, from day one, be a brick: after every trip to the pool, I’ll cycle home the long way; after every bike ride I’ll run a few miles. This will not only get in a secondary session in each sport, but from the start I’ll be acclimatising my body and mind to the strange sensation of transitioning from one mode of exercise to the next. The obvious flaw in this is that the discipline needing most work, swimming, only gets one outing a week. Well, that’s also the discipline that needs the most logistics (travelling to the pool). So for now I’ll have to live with that.

And has there been any actual training, or just talk?

Why yes, there has been a bit. A couple of outings on the bike: at 9ish miles a mere limbering up, barely a third of the target race distance. But I know from experience that there’s no point attempting too much too soon; a month of that will get me into the groove and I can start to increase. Each ride has been rounded off with a trifling one-mile run, nothing more than a token effort at this stage. The first attempt was, as everyone says, very strange, trying to run on legs stuck in an unusual shape, pins and needles in the feet, limbs and lungs already fatigued but all the usual running joints strangely fresh and loose. The second try was a lot smoother, and I knocked out the mile in 8 minutes.

Cycling at night is of course not as straightforward as running at night. Charging lamp batteries is another task to be added to the regular to-do list as the pile of stuff grows. With a dull headlamp, as I found out, on the unlit road sections I’m relying on the distant urban glow and the headlights of passing cars to reveal the otherwise frame-jangling potholes. In time I’ll memorise the locations of the potholes, and learn how to avoid the few seconds of headlight dazzle without swerving into the kerb. In a few weeks, assuming I survive that long, I may also decide that night riding on unlit roads isn’t a good idea.

On the running front, as previously documented, November’s good work fell by the wayside, so I’m rebooting once more, with a few weeks of gentle 3 milers before taking it up a notch.

Last night was the first swimming lesson. That deserves a post of its own.

And off we go.