Training for my first triathlon
Well I am training currently for my firtst triathlon. I chose the Waterfront triathlon – which is the sprint distance – as the only chance for me to survice it somehow 
In german this distance is also called a jedermann triathlon or ultra short triathlon. The event will start on Sept. 12, 2009. (read more here)
Distances for the sprint triathlon: (See the whole courses here)
- Swimming: 500m ( inner harbour dock )
- Cycling: 20 km
- Running: 5 km
I will give some short updates on results, feelings, do’s and don’t and everythink that comes to my mind regarding the training.Just as a remark: it is alljust for fun – I am just a hobby sportsman – keep that in mind when reading my posts. I was never in a running, cycling or swimming club and never really learned one of the disciplines. But i read a lot on the internet, thy to good blogs and try to adapt as much as I can. I also take any chances - two weeks ago I i had the chance to run with a triathlet who was training a football team were my eurorunenrs mate joppi is playing. Good experiance for me.
As an introduction a few remarks about my current training status and my goals for the thriathlon. (hope dies last)
- Swimming: I not the Hoff. I am an absolute novice – a beginner – a nobody – forget it. But that is probably the worst discipline for most of the paticipants. It is not that i cannot swim. I swam a lot when I was in school and in my teen-age but didn’t really swim for some 10 years now – except from vacations – but there it’s more catching balls in the water I started 4 weeks ago in the local open air bath to check my stat and start the crowl training. I was not able to crowl a complete 50m lane. I was able to make 500m breaststroke, though and took this as a fallback solution. But for every other swimming novice out there I have to say: improvement is great. I train 2 times a week now and the results are terrific (of course still improving on absolute basic level). Comparable to improvements when starting to train pushups (if you know what I mean). You can read more in my weekly training updates. By the way: I will continue to train swimming. It just feels good and I think you move and train muscles I, besides from that, never use. My Goal for the triathlon: < 15 Minutes for the 500m.
- Cycling: I am just a beginner on a real racing bike and never owned one until I bought one my first racing bike about 3 month ago (Read more here). Nevertheless I do some fitness training and was also regularly cycling on my own ergometer. So cycling was not totally unknown to me but the bad news is that of course I just did it as fitness training – like 15 km on the ergometer – 2 times a week ). That is not really a cycling approach. But I want to state that I like cycling a lot. Just read some of the posts in this blog to get an impression. I like my bike, I like to ride, I like the possibility to see so much of the ‘neighbourhood’ . I think now I have to calm down a little, I am still just a beginner. I usually ride something in between 20 km to 50 km per course. I made some 650 km since I bought the bike in totl and am able to go close to 30 km/h average on 20 to 25 km, now. My Goal for the triathlon: < 40 Minutes for the 20 km. (or average speed > 30km/h on 20 km)
- Running: I think I am an average (hobby)runner now. I used to start running some 1 and 1/2 years from now and made my first 10km run in Sept 2008. I made it in 52:something minutes and improved to 46 minutes for 10km this year in July. I today made my best result on 5km which was 20:58 Minutes. I am very happy with that. My Goal for the triathlon: < 25 Minutes for the 5km.
- All-in-All: if I sum up the goals from above, my overall goal for the triathlon is something in between 1:20:00 to 1:30:00. Hoping for something close to 1:20:00, though
So I will give a weekly update on the training stats (also compared to the goals above) and will of course make a final article about the real event which will take place on Sept 12, 2009. Not to far away…..
I know that time is short (only 4 weeks left) but I will do one Test-Thriathlon before the competition and give an update of that as well.
Tension raises
Keep on sporting,
Klaas