Robin Dale discusses his latest attempt on the York Triathlon Super Sprint nearly 7 years after his first attempt.
Robin has worked for Rockliffe Hall for many years and has always been a fitness enthusiast. His latest challenge was participating in the York Triathlon Super Sprint, which is a combination of swimming, running and cycling. Read all about his experience undertaking this latest challenge...
Reflecting on the last time ...
It had been about 7 years since I last did the York Triathlon Super Sprint, so the aim was to beat the time it took me last time. With the challenge date set all that was left to do was the training.
My swimming speed has not improved much but my stroke now saves more energy. On the bike my power output is better than 7 years ago and also my ability to pace in a race has improved massively thanks to having a power meter on the bike.
Using the Rockliffe Hall gym equipment
Those of you now using the new spin bikes know the benefits of doing a power test and being able to pace yourself in spin class by using your individual power percentage, this kind of training can help you improve much like how it has helped me improve as I get older.
Many people are aware that I am not a fan of running, so to train for this part of the race I used a feature on the treadmill which links to the Strava app. On the Strava app is all my completed runs so I used to race against the previous runs trying to increase the distance. This helped me as each time I would do a virtual run I would beat my previous time.
The Race
With race day only a week away I got food poisoning, which threw off all my race plans but I was still going to do the race I just had to pace it differently.
The plan for the swim was to just get through it steadily, but 3 lengths in of an 8-length race I began loosing energy, so it was eased off breaststroke for the rest of the swim.
The original plan for the bike was to pace it between 220-240 watts but now it was to back it down and keep the power under 170 watts. This left only the run to do which I did in a ‘run for a bit’ ‘walk for a bit pace’.
The Result
All in all I was quite happy with my time, transitions were good, and I finished 5th in the open category and 7th overall out of about 50.
But best of all I beat my time of 7 years ago by about 2 mins, so, I will sign up for the same event next year and hopefully this time no illness and properly smash it!
Any of you looking at doing your first triathlon, this is a great event to do and with the equipment at Rockliffe Hall gym you have to tools to train for one.
Find out more about the Rockliffe Hall gym and personal training.
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