Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Triathlon Training: 3.5 Mile Run

With the race now less then a week away I decided to keep going hard with my workouts. I plan on doing a light run on Friday and then taking Saturday as a rest day and that will be my mini-taper into the event.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the gym to hit the treadmill. One of the things I dislike about running is that I seem to get bored rather quickly. They have TV's at the gym but I cannot hear because the volume is down and cannot read the subtitle because my vision sucks! I bring my iPod to listen to music but even that gets old after a short time. So, my new thing is downloading movies to my iPod and watching them while I run! The difficulty was that the iPod would tend to bounce around from the vibration of the treadmill. While I but some double-sided Velcro on the back of my iPod case and stuck it to the treadmill and problem solved! So now I have movies to watch while running! So as I was watching, "Taken" yesterday I did 3.5 miles. I felt very strong and could have went another mile or two but I had to go meet Annie and friends for dinner. My 5k split was 24:40. With each passing day of training I am becoming more confident that I am going to do well at the Triathlon.

I have decided what I am going to wear for the Tri. This is sort of a tough decision. Do you change clothes behind a towel at the transitions? Do you change from swim trunks, to bike shorts, to running shorts? Do you wear a speedo? Well, after a few trials I have decided that I am going to wear Triathlon shorts for the entire event. These look like a pair of biking shorts except the pad in the ass is not as large. Because it is a smaller pad you can run and swim in the same shorts. And the material is neoprene like so they dry rather quickly. Now one of the problems I was having with these shorts is the lack of "male" support. Since you are swimming in these you cannot wear briefs underneath because they will be wet and uncomfortable for the rest of the race. So, I found a cheap little Michael Phelps looking speedo at the Academy Sports and will be wearing that underneath. I have tried it out on all three events and my brick it it worked out perfect. Hopefully by keeping my clothing options simple my transitions will go much smoother for me than most newbies!

Today is another swimming day. I am going to do a minimum of 40 laps (1000 yards) and possibly a few more.

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

4 comments:

  1. Your training times sound great. You are definitely prepared for your race. I like your run times! With my age limited max HR at 168, it is taking a long time for me to get my cardio to the point where it can handle the speed. Maybe by the time I run the Oly my HR to speed ratio will be better.

    I wore tri shorts during my triathlon. It is definitely the best option. I know what you mean about the support. I went commando! At first you feel a little silly, but when you get there and everyone is wearing them, you don't even think about it anymore.

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  2. Jeff...are you sure those shorts are neoprene? I've seen (and worn) lycra spandex cycling shorts...but neoprene might chafe the crap out of you! Something you can wear during all events would seem to save you time in the transition area...but I've never done a triathlon, so I'm not speaking from experience.

    Supporting the "boys" so they don't rumble and tumble during your triathlon is a good move. That alone is enough to bother the heck out of me.

    I wish you all the best during your final days of training and prep! I know you're stoked! You're going to do well!

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  3. Lol -- yes the support is the key. The tri shorts are pretty decent except for the support part.

    Steve... here is the link of the shorts I got:
    http://www.aevero.com/xcart/product.php?productid=2&cat=1&page=1

    Looks like they are something called Durasoft?

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