Chris (Kamahl from Transitions) decided to enter a team into the Canberra Half Ironman at the weekend as he wanted to do the bike leg. I volunteered for the swim and Michelle plumped for the run. It was the first triathlon I had been to and I had a great time. I got the easy option and was only doing the swim. Chris lent me his wetsuit for my first time swimming in a wettie and it’s unbelievable how buoyant they are! I’d done a 2km swim during the week in a reasonably comfortable 29:30, so I figured I’d manage around 28ish for the 1.9km assuming there were no navigation errors.

The teams started in the last wave with the M35-39 group, so I got up front right from the gun and settled into a nice rhythm with one or two other guys. There was a group of about 5 ahead of us, but they were going much faster than I wanted to, so I let them go. Swimming in a full wettie was quite tough. My shoulders got tired fairly quickly, so when I buy my own one I reckon I’ll go the long john style to give me some freedom around the shoulders.

Water was fully brown, so couldn’t see a thing around me, but all went well and I managed to stay upright once I hit the ramp to exit the lake. Forgot to stop my watch, figuring that the 500m or so run to transition counted as part of my swim time, but I did look down shortly after leaving the water to see 25:36 on the clock, so I reckon I swam around 25:15 or so. Was pretty happy with that given that I was aiming for around 28! Average HR was 174!! Didn’t feel that hard though, but the run to tranisiton nearly killed me! I was bloody delighted to hand over to Chris, thinking to myself “how can these guys be heading off for 90km bike & a half marathon” and “I need to do more than 4km swimming a week”

Chris’s bike computer didn’t start, but we reckon he rode around 2:25. He said it was a very tough course. Constantly up and down, with no flats to settle into. Everyone else seems to agree. Michelle ran about 2:20 which she was happy with.

While everyone else was doing the hard work I farted around taking pictures.

Back into training this week for my first full triathlon at the weekend.

S: 5200m