Triathlon

Now that my first 5K is over and done I am officially in training for my first sprint triathlon! I will be racing the York YWCA Y-Tri Ladies Sprint Triathlon on June 26. I chose this race because it is a local, smaller race and therefore I will have less to worry about. The location of the race is literally a few miles from my house, which makes training on the same routes particularly easy. I am excited to be training for a triathlon since I have such a strong background in swimming plus a new love for running. However, there are some things that I need to figure out before I complete this first triathlon of mine:

1. What I will be racing in
Not the exact outfit, but rather will I swim in a bathing suit and then run and bike in it too? If I do, will it be a two-piece suit or a one-piece? I know I am comfortable running in a bathing suit but I don't know about biking in one, especially one that is wet. I need to figure out what shoes I will be using also. Do I want to switch shoes between the biking and running or just stick to the same pair?

2. How to ride a hilly bike course
I would say that the biking part is my weakest out of the three solely because I have the least experience biking. I have gone on a few rides with my dad on the Rail Trail but nothing longer than 12 miles at around 12 mph. And the Rail Trail is incredibly flat. And not paved. So I have no experience biking on a road with other cars or other bikers. I also have no experience doing hills on a bike. I drove the bike portion of the triathlon the other day and it is very hilly. I am very nervous about being able to complete it. I plan on doing a lot of hill work before the triathlon so that I can feel somewhat prepared.

3. Race day fueling
I dealt with a pretty bad side stitch during my 5K and I want to do everything to prevent that during my triathlon. I need to figure out what will be the best for me to eat the morning of the race so that I am properly fueled and don't have any stomach issues during. I also need to figure out what I want to bring with me during the race. I have tried sport jelly beans before after a run and thought they were pretty tasty so I will probably be bringing them with me but I don't have a clue how many I should bring or how I often I should eat them.

4. What to do with my hair
This may sound kind of silly but between wearing a swim cap and a helmet I am trying to figure out what to do with my hair. For the 5K I wore my hair in a ponytail but did not pin back my long bangs since I never had before but they were going everywhere by the end and they were driving me nuts. I thought about using bobby pins to hold my bangs but I doubt they will stay in during the swim part. My hope is to have my bangs long enough by then that they will stay in my ponytail. If not, then I really need to figure out what to do with them.

5. What my swim time is
For registration for the triathlon I am supposed to give my 500 swim time. Well, my best is around 5 minutes but that was when I was swimming competitively. There is no way that I will go under six minutes since I have only been in the pool once in the past six months. I really need to start swimming more and decide what time to put down. Also, I don't plan on kicking at all during the swim part since I never really used to before. This will conserve my legs and not really mess my swim up much anyway. I plan on going to the pool and doing some 500's with a pull buoy to see how fast I can go and then use that time.

6. Keeping my legs fresh after the biking
I know I can run 3.1 miles fine, but I am not sure how I will do after biking 15 miles on a very hilly course. I have brick workouts scheduled for every Wednesday and I plan on doing some reverse brick workouts too to switch things up some. After the 5K this weekend I am just really worried that my legs won't be able to handle running that after biking. This and biking the hills are probably my biggest challenges for the triathlon but because of that I will be working on them the most.