South Davis Recreation center indoor tri series: December 2022 Sprint

A Race Report of a Different Sort

1:00AM (ish) Post Race Photo at Katie's House

An indoor triathlon…an indoor triathlon…an indoor sprint triathlon…huh…

This was a new concept for me. I had been looking to see if I could find any kind of triathlon going on in either November or December. And I kept bumping into this “Indoor Racing Series” thing that was only an hour(ish) north of my sisters house. It was set up differently than any other sprint I had ever seen before. I have seen where they will do the swim inside and the other two events outside but never ALL of it INSIDE. I mean, it waaaaas in December so pretty understandable…

The race was split into waves. Around 15 people per wave, starting every 30 minutes. The first wave started at 7:00 PM and the last one at 9:00PM. Which, if you think about your standard city rec center, they don’t have that many bikes or treadmills and there isn’t all that much room on the track. So instead of doing the snake thing, each person got their own half lane for the full 15 minutes and you swam as many laps as you could and they counted how many lengths of the pool you completed. Then it was a set transition. You had a 10 minute transition to get from the pool, completely changed and onto one of their spin bikes. There was only a 5 minute transition between the bike and the run. Aka, just enough time to change from bike shoes to running shoes. Luckily the run was going to be on an indoor track and not a treadmill.

So I called up my twin sister Katie and asked if she would do it with me. Please note, she doesn’t swim, like ever and bikes only sometimes. Aka this was definitely NOT in her wheelhouse. But you know why she is awesome? She said yes anyway! Suddenly, this race wasn’t about time or distance. This race was now just about having fun with her. Ooooor at least about suffering right next to each other. 😅

My Official Bike Split

Things I learned:

1. 10 minutes is actually not a lot of time to get from an indoor pool, fully change, get to the biking area and (here’s the critical one) get your spin bike set to your specs. It turned out that the bikes they had were not a brand I had ever used before. So I wasn’t able to get really comfortable on it within the 1 1/2 minutes or so I had left before we had to start.

2. Doing an indoor triathlon would be the reason to finally learn how to do flip turns. There are many things that translate from pool swimming to open water swimming but flip turns are not one of them. Rivers, lakes and the ocean don’t really have a lot of walls in them. But if I was doing more races with indoor swims…being good at flip turns would make up a lot of time.

3. A 9:00 PM race start is a whole different animal to an AM race start. You have all day to mess up your fueling, wear yourself out, think too much etc…. Annnd this is my bedtime!

Things I did well:

1. Started fueling the hour and a half before the race. Since it was a sprint distance there really wasn’t going to be time for anything I took in during the actual race to hit my system. Thank you Katie for making sure we did that!

2. Sometimes you look back on a race and think “I could have pushed it harder in the swim” or “I was too afraid to blow up on the run to really go for it”. We do that for all sorts of reasons but that wasn’t me for this race. This race I really tried to lay it all out there. Not because I had to win or anything like that. But because it was a safe place to do it. To see where my fitness was, to get a glimpse into what my body is capable of. And if I “blew up”? I wasn’t going to have to walk it in or make it to the next aid station.

3. Got into the pool early enough to at least get a 100 meter warm up in. Which really isn’t much but it is better than going from 0 to ALL Out.

Things I would change/ do differently:

1. Get there even earlier so I could figure out the set up I would need for the spin bike before it was go time. Neither Katie or I had a chance to get comfortable on our bikes so I am sure we left some watts on the table for lack of a decent bike fit.

2. I would also have gotten into the water earlier. That way I could have gotten a solid 3-400 meter warm up in before trying to swim all out for 15 minutes.

3. Gotten waaaaay more pictures! I really try to enjoy the moment I am in but it would not have been an impediment to just take a stickin picture or two. I didn’t think of it until we were back at Katie’s house and the race was all over though. 🙄🤷🏼‍♀️ The bike computer picture doesn't count. That is pure reflex from having lost other bike workouts in the past 😓

I actually thought that the scoring was one of the most ingenious parts. Whoever got the highest score in each discipline got 100 pts(male or female). Each person with less got the percentage of points their score was in relation to the number that received the 100. So if the top cyclist had gotten 10 miles in and another cyclist got 9 miles, then the top cyclist would have received 100 points and the other cyclist 90. Same with number of lengths in the pool and laps on the run.

A Screenshot of the Race Results

It is really hard to put into words why this race was so much fun. But I think what it boils down to is that it was an Open Community. And I mean you walked in and didn’t feel like you were just a bib number “here’s your bib, NEXT!”. We walked in, found the check in table and were immediately greeted by no less than 3 people. One of which (a Coach Lora Erickson @theblonderunner) proceeded to give us a guided tour of the building. She welcomed us in and made us feel like old friends right from the get go.

And since the whole thing was indoors you got to stay with the same group of people the entire time. Without having to make any concessions about sticking with each other if you were more comfortable going at a faster pace. Katie and I didn’t do a lot (if any) talking while we were actually on the clock. We were too busy breathing! But a surprising amount of chatter happened between each section of the race. By the end of the race I had learned the name of all the other people in our wave, a whole 3 people besides Katie and I. Apparently not many people wanted to start a race at 9PM. But that is 3 more people than I have met at any other race.

We even invited all of them to meet up at IHOP after. It was the only thing open, aaaand pancakes with eggs and hash browns sounded amazing! They all had their own plans (probably to go to bed) so it was back to Katie and I. Which was also super fun. We took our time: compared thoughts and notes about the race and how we did. Now I can’t wait until December so I can do it all again. And I guess that’s all you can really ask for.

My Results: Total points: 242

Swim Lengths: 33/ 82.5 pts 3rd Female Overall

Bike Miles: 8.3/ 82.83 pts 1st Place Age Group

Run Laps: 23/ 76.67 pts 15th Finisher Overall