In training for my first triathlon I went from working out casually maybe once a week to 5-6 fairly intense workouts every week over the last 11 weeks. During this time I've learned a few things, mostly searching out answers online for how to feel/perform/recover better. A lot of the things I've learned fly right in the face of what I've always thought about swimming, cycling, running. So, in a way, you perhaps can forget how to ride a bike (or swim a lap, or run there and back)...
1. Swimming - My main misconception about the swimming part is left over from competitive swimming as a teenager. It was drilled into me that I should try to breathe as little as possible at the beginning, on the turns and at the end in order to keep a streamline and therefore, go faster, and definitely don't breathe every stroke. So I just tonight watched a video that instructs tri swimmers to breathe as much as they can, especially at the start (even every stroke if possible) to maximize oxygen intake so you can get through the whole swim better! I was so relieved to hear this because I've been struggling with breath in the pool. I still try to conserve breaths, only breathing every third stroke... I'm really excited now to get in the pool next time and breathe breathe breathe!
2. Cycling - My main misconception with cycling was less about the sport and more about my abilities - I feared that I couldn't get up hills or endure long rides. And now I can do both. Sarah K, who has been something like my sports shrink for nearly 2 decades, told me that when I see a hill coming I should think, "Oh perfect, a hill! I love to climb hills!" (Actually, now that I think of it, it's not just sports - she told me many years ago that I should expect to get X amount of rejection letters before I got one acceptance letter for my writing, that way I could count each rejection as getting just a little closer to triumph! She's so tricky that one.) Anyway, I totally do that when I see a hill coming now and I got so excited about hills the other day that I dry-heaved once I got to the top of an especially steep one. Long rides - I consistently ride over the race length of 12 miles and that has given me the most amount of confidence towards any of the 3 race segments. With the cycling leg, I feel the most confidence about moving onto longer races next year. But not so with...
3. Running - My main misconception with running was that it's just walking...but faster. I think that since there is no equipment to learn (a bicycle) or a special environment in which to adapt (water), I figured that if you're physically fit (and know how to walk) you'll just naturally be able to run, right? But I'm like Bambi on the ice every time I try to casually break into a
jog and I feel all wrong, awkward and my lower legs just ache like
crazy. So I've been slacking on the running part of my training schedule, thinking "oh, I'll just cycle a few more miles or swim extra and run a little bit less, it's all the same..." My fitness level has increased, but my running still sucks. Oh well for now. I plan to just get through this first triathlon and then attend some running clinics to seriously try to learn some technique because I have none right now and I suspect that I'm making it harder than it has to be!
Some triathlons let non-swimmer participants do what's called a "duathlon" instead - so while everyone else is swimming they run a shorter course than the final run leg. Um, excuse me race coordinators, how about a no running option?!
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