This past Sunday I did one of the most useful training sessions I possibly could have done for my upcoming triathlon (Charlottesville Sprint, 6/27/2010). I attended Tri2Bmore’s triathlon racing clinic, where local coach Liz Flynn (www.tri2bmore.com) and her team taught 25 aspiring triathletes techniques for racing in a multisport event.

The day started at 7:00am at a local outdoor pool with introductions, a bike check, and body marking. Then the 25 of us (mostly women, interestingly) broke up into two waves (WAVE ONE RULES!) and started in on the clinic. My group was first in the pool for a half-hour session on the open water swim. Coach Liz had set up buoys in the water for us to swim around, and we started by practicing sighting, first with our eyes open under water, then with our eyes closed. Closing our eyes simulated the murky water we will be facing on race day, and made the sighting practice more realistic. We were also taught how to “corkscrew” around the buoys, which sounds difficult but once you get the hang of it it’s easy to see how much faster it is! The idea is that when you reach a turn at a buoy, instead of continuing with a forward crawl, you do a corkscrew stroke (flipping onto your back for a stroke, then continuing the flip back onto your stomach). This helps to turn you around without slowing down!

Swimming in a big group all at once was a great experience to have before race day. Having never swum in a big group like that before, I was nervous about how things would go on race day, but now I know that I don’t have (much) to worry about! Coach Liz also gave us some tips on how to conserve energy for the bike and run (“The swim is a means to the bike, the bike is a means to the run, and the run is the race”), and how to be prepared for getting our goggles kicked off or having water get into them.

After the swim session, Wave 1 headed back to the field where our bikes and bags were and learned about transitions. Two veteran triathletes explained to us about what we would need at each transition, what to expect as far as set-up, and showed us how they did their transitions. After their demo, it was our turn! We set up our race areas, put on our caps and goggles, spun around a few times and did some pushups (to get our HRs up!), and jogged into “T1″, where we put on socks, bike shoes, and a helmet, and jogged our way over to the mount line with our bikes. After a few hundred feet of pedaling we reached the dismount line, and then it was back to the transition area for “T2″. After pulling on a pair of running shoes, putting on our race numbers (we got this really cool race number belt from the clinic people), and grabbing a handheld water bottle, we jogged a few yards and were done with the transition practice. What a great way to get us ready for race day!

After the two sessions it was around 9:30am and time for our mock race! After a “pre-race meeting” wave 1 got in the water, treaded water for 2 minutes, and then we were off! We did 6 loops of the buoys, a 12 mile bike ride (6x a 2m course), and a 2 mile run. I got kind of lost on the run course, and ended up cutting about 3/4ish of a mile off of it. Whoops! Other than that, it went great! The swim was really easy, I kicked butt on the bike (lapped a few people, even!) at about 17mph on a moderately hilly course. Transitions were no problem, although I kind of failed at remembering to put on sunscreen. Oops. At 10:30 am when it was time for the run and 90 degrees out (or at least it *felt* that hot), my legs were a little dead. The first mile of the run was rough, but it was starting to get easier as I kept going.

I think I’m ready for next weekend when I’ll be doing .3 mile swim, 16mi bike, and a 5k run. After the race clinic I feel confident! Thanks to Coach Liz for putting on this great clinic. It was *so* well organized, we got great goodie bags, and so much useful information. The price was very reasonable as well for the quality and amount of instruction that we received. Above all, it was fun! I’m hoping I’ll be able to go to more of her events this summer!