Indoor Triathlon Recap

This morning, I headed over to the Pueblo Athletic Club to participate in the Indoor Triathlon. Since most of my training has been at my aerobic threshold, I was curious to see what would happen if I decided to push the pace a bit more.  I wasn't entirely sure if this was a good idea or not, but I decided to go ahead and go for it.  It was fun, but I pushed enough to really make it hurt.

Unlike a traditional triathlon, the events are completed in reverse order (run, bike, swim).  In addition, your place in this event is based on how much total distance you cover.
RUN
The run consisted of 20 minutes on the treadmill.  I chose the "Woodway" treadmill which is a bit narrower, but has a nice soft belt for running.  I started the 20 minute run with a 10 minute/ mile warm-up of a couple of minutes.  Every minute thereafter, I increased the pace on the machine by about .2 mph.  I kept increasing the pace until I maxed out at about 7:00/mile.  With about 4 minutes left, I backed off a bit and finished the 20 minutes at a 7:30/mile pace.  My overall distance for this time was 2.5 miles.  Certainly not the fastest 20 minutes I've ever run, but not the slowest either.  I have to admit that I felt pretty gassed after that, but there wasn't any time to rest as we were on to the bike segment.
BIKE

The bike segment was 30 minutes that was divided into 3 separate intensities.  For the first ten minutes we rode in the 15 gear.  Then it moved down to 10 for another ten minutes, before the final ten minutes in the 5 gear.  Despite being plenty tired from running, I managed a pretty good pace on the spin bike.  The first 10 minutes were a bit closer to how I normally ride although on my bike, my average cadence is still about 10 rpm's slower (I normally turn about 70-75 rpm's).  During the second segment on the bike, the cadence increased significantly.  It was even worse when we hit the last ten minutes.  In all honesty, I thought that the first ten minutes at gear 15 would be the hardest, but that last twenty minutes at such a high intensity was way worse.  When all was said and done, I'd managed about 15.6 miles during the 30 minutes.  Wish I could manage that kind of pace out on the roads!
SWIM
The last phase of the triathlon consisted of a ten minute swim. Pretty straightforward.  The nice thing is that they had someone counting laps for you, so all you had to do was swim.  Considering how exhausted I was from the first 50 minutes, I managed to crank out a pretty decent swim (at least for me).  Nothing too fast, but I stayed fairly consistent and didn't let my technique fall apart.    I did do a lot more breathing, but I also managed to flip turn the whole time, which I'm sure gained me a length or two.  Total distance was .3 miles.
FINISH
My official distance for the event was 18.41 miles and while I certainly wasn't the fastest person there, I was pleased with my overall performance.  Especially considering that I haven't really done any kind of speed work in the last several months.   Up next on the calendar is the Spring Runoff.  This year I will be doing the 10k with my daughter.  My only hope is that it isn't quite as intense as today's triathlon.