Pre-workout weigh-in: 147
Every once in awhile, I like to simulate a sprint triathlon in the gym. I've never done a real triathlon. I had thought about doing the Showdown at Sundown sprint tri when I'd heard Katy was thinking about training for it. The plan died on the vine I guess, but the notion stuck with me for awhile. I decided not to pursue it because (a) I'd have to get a road bike, (b) I'd have to get a wet suit (since the Lake Mead water temp is less than 60F that time of year...brrr, and (c) I wanted to focus on the marathon.
But I don't think a sprint-length triathlon would be too difficult for me, depending on conditions and terrain. I think I can put all the pieces together without killing myself.
But anyway, it's a fun cross training exercise to pretend.
The Swim:
I can swim 1-2 miles pretty comfortably. I don't usually try to bust myself trying to trim every second off, but I have nice, steady pace. I can cover a mile in under 30 minutes, so a sprint-length swim of 750m is pretty easy and a good warmup for the other disciplines. I've only done it in a pool. I surf too, but I don't do a lot of open water swimming. Add some wind chop and a couple hundred other swimmers splashing and jostling around me and I suppose it's not so serene. 750m is about 16.5 laps in a junior olympic pool, which takes me about 12 minutes to finish. Today, I did 17 laps and recorded the split, but then I chose to do 200 more meters free and another 200 pulling the buoy (arms only), just to get a full workout. I was done in about 22 minutes from the start.
"Transition":
Not a real race transition, obviously. I showered to get the chlorine off of me and changed into my running clothes. Put my trunks through the spin dryer really quick and locked my locker back up. I spent about 5-7 minutes making the change and getting over to Renee's spin class.
The Bike:
It's been a long time since I've ridden a real road bike. I get my cycling conditioning from the spin studio, which I hadn't been doing lately in lieu of run training. Renee is a tough instructor and her 60-minute classes wipe me out. I got to the studio with the class in full swing, doing a low cadence, high resistance climb already. I jumped on a vacant bike and spent about 5 minutes catching up. Swimming doesn't elevate my heart rate so much, so I had to do a little tempo riding to build to where the class was.
As per usual, she had my legs burning and my lungs heaving by the (my) halfway mark. I was drenched and had already downed my whole 24oz water bottle. I made it through the final 5-minute segment of surges and dropped out of the class while they went into cooldown mode. My total time in there was 27 minutes and I was at my anaerobic threshold for most of it. As much running as I've done, my legs are just not in condition for cycling. I have no idea, really, if the 27 minutes of spin class equates reasonably to 20K distance of a sprint tri bike ride. Probably not: I'm thinking the bike portion would normally take me at least 40 minutes to cover 12 miles? I don't know.
The Run:
All I have to do to transition from the spin ride to the treadmill is walk up some stairs to a mezzanine where the treadmills await. I filled up my water bottle, drank about 10 oz, and began. This is always the hardest part for me. The first mile of the run is always mentally tough. I'm usually feeling a little dizzy and my legs just don't seem to want to start using the leg muscles that are antagonistic to what are used in cycling. It takes me about a mile to get comfortable. Today, I purposely started out at a snail's pace, just to get through that transition barrier; then gradually picked up the tempo. I felt pretty darned good over the final 2 miles and could have kept going; but I had to get back to the office and had already been in the gym for 90 minutes as it was.
I finished up the 5K in 25-something minutes and finished off the water. Did an abridged version of my stretching routine and drank some more.
Post workout weigh-in: 144.5
So I was 2.5 lbs -- about 40ozs -- short of fluid, despite drinking at least 48oz during the workout. That's 88ozs in 90 minutes: an ounce of sweat and aspirated moisture a minute. That's a lot of water. I think the rule of thumb is a cup of water every 15 minutes. Unless my calculation is wrong, I'm a 2-cup/15-minute sweathog. At least I was flushing the fluid and not retaining it today.
