Hyderabad traithlon 2015

It was October again and time for my annual triathlon. I wasn't sure till the last whether I should do a Olympic triathlon or a sprint one. I finally settled for sprint considering my weekend trips will not give me enough practice to swim. Yep, that is the truth. You are always least concerned about other parts of the event apart from swim. If you do not practice swim, you will burn yourself out. This time thankfully I got enough sessions of swimming prior to the event. And I was lucky to have 2 other triathletes to accompany me, Ryetika and Ravi, that made it easier to drag myself for those early morning practice sessions.

practice sessions! :)




While Ryetika was also practicing for sprint, Ravi was targeting Olympic version (double than ours) I personally count of 6 sessions of swim, mostly 500mtr+ and it was good to work on my technique as well where I put minimum drag to water.


The event day
The leisure event started at 8:00am, unlike other events that start early morning. I happily slept for 10hrs (after a day hike a day before). After flag-off I did a joy ride of 20km without over exerting myself. Lessons from last year, I wanted to save all my energy for the swim and also keep myself hydrated, so I kept sipping electrolyte. I looped an extra km due to some confusion with organizers.

After an hour of cycling, running 5km took some 30min. I came back to check for swim slots and as expected there was a long waiting queue. I was surprised to see Ravi still waiting to start with his swim. This was good news for me as I wanted myself to cool down before jumping in the pool. I waited for Ryetika who also finished sometime later. We both then had to wait for about 2 hrs to finally get free swimming lanes. My idea was to lap a 50mtr, wait 30 sec and then lap next 50. This I should continue for 15 laps. I was skeptical about the panic I had last year due to the deep pool and I got a middle lane to swim. But after first lap itself I realized I should be able to do this fine. I hardly waited for 10sec between laps and finished 750mtr in good 45min. Super happy I went to check how Rytz was doing. She was in same panic scenario I was in last year. Doing her 9th lap, she was still scared of depth. I motivated her to finish it. Good thing was she didn't gave up. However slow, she finished the swim in about 70min.

We got our medallions and had our food. Now was a long wait for our friend Ravi. We went around the stadium, had some tea, watched other athletes, but there was no news of Ravi. Finally we decided we will go in car and check him out. He was hardly 1km away from the stadium. We cheered him up to finish line. He was really the hero of the day as it was a sunny and hot when he bicycled and ran.

After that our photo sessions continued for some time.





Timings! :)
Overall a great experience with a lot of learning this year, though not so happy with organizers due to long waiting time for swim and all confusion. Practice does make a lot of difference. Next time more practice for the Olympic version (1.5km swim, 10km run, 40km cycle). And carry own water sack to avoid plastics on event day.

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