Officially a triathlete: Os triathlon 2015

I have just completed Os triathlon! 750 meters swimming, 20 km cycling, and 5 km running. My finish time goal was 1:40. I finished in 1:37!

All right, be prepared, I will give you all the details! In particular, if you have never tried triathlon, but are interested, there are probably many things you are wondering about, to which you might find answers here. For triathlons and open water swimming in Norway, you normally need a wetsuit. I bought a Blueseventy Fusion a few weeks ago, which I have already tested out a few times. In addition to the wetsuit, one has a trisuit, which is a combined shorts and sleeveless t-shirt in one piece. You wear the trisuit under your wetsuit, and after completing the swimming part, you simply take off your wetsuit, and do your biking and running in the trisuit. The trisuit is made of stuff that resembles that of a bathing suit, so it is supposed to be tight and to dry very quickly. I tested my trisuit just once before today, during a test run of Os triathlon about three weeks ago. There are some issues about a trisuit, especially for women; should we have underwear beneath it or not? Asking friends and googling a bit gave the conclusion: no panties! However, when it comes to a bra, the opinions were divided. During the test run, I wore a bra, but I felt very wet and cold all the time during the biking. This time I decided to skip the bra, and it worked very well, especially since I wore a vest on top the trisuit after the swimming, as it was pretty windy today.

On Friday, I fetched my start numbers. There were a lot of them. Some to be placed on the bike, some on the helmet, and some on myself. I ended up buying a race belt also, as the number on myself had to be on the back during cycling, and in the front during running. No, it is not supposed to be easy... I made everything ready yesterday evening, so that all that remained for this morning was to put on the trisuit and some warmer clothes on top of it, and to have some breakfast. The competition was to start at 10:30, and I wanted to be there at around 9, to have enough time to figure out how the transition area works, where to place my bike and rest of my equipment. Normaly I like to eat about two hours before hard exercise, but that was exactly the time we needed to leave home to get there in time. So I ended up dividing my breakfast into two. I had some of it at 7:30 and some of it at 8:45 in the car on the way.

Frank was, as usual, the driver, the photographer, the cheerleader, the full support team! As soon as we arrived and parked, we found several of our Melkesyre friends, and it was great to talk to them, to ask their advice, and get some pep talk, as all of them who where there today are already triathletes (even Ironmans!).

I also found my good friend Ingunn there, who got me into trying triathlon, and whom I had all three of my training sessions with.  After chatting and cheering each other up a bit, we went to find our places in the bike racks. The numbers were placed pretty tight, so it was important that neighboring bikes were facing opposite directions. However, there was complete confusion about which direction to place your bike. It was supposed to hang by the seat, but should it face you or the other way? After discussing with many people and finally finding an official who could give the correct answer, fortunately the way that was the most intuitive for me turned out to be the correct way. Bike facing me, so that I could hang my helmet with glasses inside on the one handle, and hang the race belt and the vest on the other handle. Place the shoes in front, with socks inside, so they are all ready to go.

For this occasion, several weeks ago I borrowed the bike of my good friend Irene, who has a faster bike than my hybrid. Hers has also click-on pedals, and as we have the same shoe size, I even borrowed her click-on shoes. However, during my training, I figured out that the time ahead for Os triathlon was too short for me to get used to the click-on shoes. I fell once and hurt my hand (it is still not well yet), and after that I decided to do this one without the click-on shoes. I would simply bike with my running shoes, which would also save time in the transition between biking and running. I tried this out at the trial run, and it worked fine, and this is exactly what I did today, too. After placing everything neatly into its place, it was time to put on the wetsuit.

I had to be careful so that the timing device, which had to be placed around the left ankle, did not get torn away. Wet socks first, then the wetsuit, find the goggles, the cap, and the ear plugs, and then I was ready to do some warm up.

At this point, it was already 9:50, and the briefing was to start at 10:00. So I was really happy that we got there as early as 9 o'clock, which also gave me the time to use the bathrooms (long queue!) before putting on the wetsuit. The briefing ended at 10:10, and after that we were not allowed into the transition area. I went to the water side, and went into the water to get my goggles adjusted and fog-free and to get a light swim warm up. Everything felt good, I went out again, and did some warm up on the land while waiting for the start sound. Then we heard the sound "Ready!", I found myself a place by the water, and then went the start horn. I took it easy, as I had planned, and started swimming. It felt good at first, but just a second later somebody was swimming on top of me. I lost my breath, took a short stop, and started again. Unfortunately this repeated several times. I tried to stay away from people, but they just "attacked" me from all sides. I got an elbow in my ear, I had people pushing me to pass by, and I even had somebody pulling my leg! At least it felt like that. So, this is the part I don't understand. Why are people so aggressive during swimming? The same people are extremely nice during the biking and the running! To me it seemed pretty easy to find a "lane" and try to avoid other people, but every time I thought I found a rhythm some person would bump into me and get me out of it. Well, so the swimming did not go that well. It took me 17 minutes, and I should have been able to do it in 15, especially since I managed twice the distance in 33 minutes last week. But then there were much fewer people and everything was a million times more peaceful. Anyway, "Just live with it!" as they told us during the test run; that's just the way it is. Up from the water, I immediately started to run to the transition area, at the same time pulling the zipper of my wetsuit and already getting out of it on the way.

The way to my bike turned out to be much longer than expected; we had to run around the whole transition area before entering it, but finally I was there in front of it, with my wetsuit down to my waist. I managed to take it off more quickly than before, but I did sit down to take the socks off and to put on running socks and running shoes. I also took some time to drink a sports gel, and to drink some water. I am such a sissy during biking that I don't dare to start fiddling with the drinking bottle, so I had to fill up beforehand. On with the helmet and the glasses, on with the vest and the race belt, and off I went. We had to run with the bikes until the top of a hill, and then we were allowed to mount them and ride.

The biking part went better than expected. I completed 20 km in 46 minutes which is a new record for me. The path has uphills and downhills, and I was pleased with myself that I did not hit the breaks as often as the last time. I was also able to pass several people, especially towards the end, which gave a very good feeling. One of my friends, Michal, was one of the people on duty, watching the entry to a bridge that I was dreading a lot, and it calmed me immensely to see him there exactly at the worst point for me. I am also really happy that I did the trial run; the bridge was much less scary this time than the last. It is a narrow hanging bridge, and I just don't like such bridges. So my instinct is to bike exactly in the middle of it, which is not very easy with all the other bikers, plus some cars! Anyway, everything went well, and I came back to the transition area to leave the bike, the helmet and the glasses, and just grab a bottle of water and run! As I started I managed to remember to turn the race belt so that my number was facing forward. The running went so much better than the trial run, and I did a couple of minutes better than expected. My goal was to do the running in less than 30 minutes. Normally I am able to race a 5 km street run in about 25 minutes, but that is without the swimming and the biking beforehand (and my last race was in January!). The running course is slightly uphill all the way to the turning point, so I managed to keep my spirit up thinking that it would be downhill the last part. Unfortunately the uphills seem much more uphills than they actually are, so on the way back the downhills did not seem that much downhills. Still I finished in 27 minutes, above all expectations, and very pleased with that, especially since I have not had any running training for months!

As I passed the finish line, I heard that the speaker said my name and announced my time to be 1:37, at which point I gave a big shout and I was very very happy. The whole last week of August I was on travel and did not get to do any kind of training. This past week, I trained pretty hard on Tuesday (strength and uphill), but then I got sick, and I have been sick all the way until now. I am still a little bit reduced, but the best I have felt since Wednesday, so I don't think the sickness affected my performance that much. In fact, exactly as it was the case with Bergen City half marathon in 2014, perhaps being sick is the best preparation towards a race. It makes sure that you get enough rest!

After the finish, the Melkesyre racers found each other again, and it was time for a victory picture! Thank you all so much Freddy, Janne, Michal, Torunn, Ingunn, Wenche, and a couple of ladies whose names I don't know but who remembered me from the trial run and gave me thumbs up several times both before and during the race! The nicest part about the whole thing is that, as opposed to the trial run which felt very tough, the main experience today was FUN! It was indeed fun, and I was not expecting it. The distance of each exercise is not much, but put together it makes you think in a different way than when you are racing in only one of the disciplines. I must admit that I was looking forward to being done with Os triathlon, and I was not sure whether I wanted to continue with this. But right now, I am really motivated to try more. Short triathlons with the same distances as today but a lot more uphills involved would I think suit me well. Or longer distances but flat... perhaps an Ironman at some point?

Time will show.