My First Triathlon — Nov 2021
I had completed Sprint distance Duathlon — part of Sandman Triathlon event, in Aug. 2021 and it was completely absorbing experience. While I am still working on my Swim techniques, I was itching to find a way to get some experience completing a full Tri event. I came across Morro Bay Triathlon which provides an option of Kayaking instead of Swimming and I seemed to have landed on a great find.
Next came deciding whether to go for Sprint Tri or Olympic distance. Since I had already done Sprint distance Duathlon, I was feeling comfortable with running and biking. I just wanted to polish my biking uphill skills a bit. I went to Portola Valley and climbed 400 ft+ in a distance of <5 mi biking, with not much of an exertion. Seems I can tackle 24 mi biking with an elevation gain of 1300 ft+ , let’s get ready for the challenge.
Next up Kayaking, to prepare for it I went kayaking in Richardson Bay in Sausalito for 2 hours covering a distance of 5–6 mi. Seems Kayak can do around 3–5 mi/hour, so accordingly I thought to plan for kayaking time of 45 min — 1hr for the event.
I had already signed up for hiking up Mt Whitney in end of Oct, which should further build on and augment my overall endurance.
Fully prepared, I signed up for the triathlon.
Came the D day and I completed the triathlon successfully with total time of 2:27 and around 9 mins of total transition time. Did good in biking with avg of 12 mph at an elevation gain of total 500ft. Did well in kayaking with time of 27 minutes, run could have been better but sand course made it a bit challenging
Feeling a high after returning home, driving for about 4.5 hours back in traffic.
Left feeling that it wasn’t hard , have to sign up for longer distance events now.
Have Decided to join SVTC to improve my game and be part of the transformation journey which means more to me than just competing.
T.E. Lawrence wrote, “ “All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” How far will you go?
