First Triathlon ever-
I know doing your first tri at 25 is kind of sad but that was me. I had only read about Half Ironman and heard marveled at the human body being able to push oneself to that limit.
I signed up blindly for the event. Thankfully, I got taken in and it was a very interesting event. I had no idea what to expect and pre-race longest prep was a 1 km swim, 45 km bike ride, and a 10 km run. I thought I was ready with that.
I had no idea about nutrition or even transition. In fact, triathlon drew a big blank to me.
Swimming was the first sport I ever learnt. And that was my strongest sport by far. I swam at roughly 1.57 per 100 m pace which was a far fry from the 1.10/100m I used to swim as a kid. I had cramps close to the end of the swim.
Bike – 90 km –
I had no idea what gels were. No idea about nutrition and the need for salt. I stopped at every check point and refilled all my bottles. It was a fun ride. I took 3.17 hrs to do it. Which I think is great on a Fomas 9000 Rs bike.
Run – I think I took 3 hours.
I started out really fast and tried to hammer away at the pace. However, my body was totally salt depleted. I got salt cramps at the bottom of the Microsoft hill. That was the 3 km to go point. It took me 1 hour to walk those 3 km. Every step was a cramp but I really really wanted to finish. I had never DNFed a race and I really didn’t want to DNF my first tri.