Race Coverage

"Izzy's First Tri is in the Books"....

Thursday, 20 February 2020 23:10

By Jennifer Martone

YWCA Indoor Triathlon #2 - Every Sunday, my 16-year old daughter and I have a standing swim date. Rain, sunshine, blizzard, or ice storm, we rarely miss our Sunday time at the Y (my office is just 2 blocks from YMCA Gaviidae, so this is our pool of choice, and the poolside hot tub and sauna make it more enticing in the winter months).  We are recreational freestyle swimmers...no flip turns, very “marginal” form, and plenty of back stroke, pull buoys/kickboards, and we’re basically there to get in an easy no-impact workout on a running day off. It’s great bonding time for us, and an opportunity to let the hot tub jets offer us a free massage. 

A few weeks ago, after one of these swims, my daughter said to me “Mom, can you sign us up for an Indoor Tri?” Music to this mom triathlete’s ears. Izzy is a high school cross country runner and has recently found biking on our kinetic trainer in the basement to work well as a cross train day. As a dabbler in all 3 disciplines, she felt ready to take the Indoor Tri...

plunge. The YWCA Midtown offers 4 indoor triathlons every year, a great way to get their members (and non-members like us) to embrace multi-sport in the winter season, and potentially gear up for an outdoor tri in the Summer. The YWCA puts on an excellent female-only tri every August. 

I personally have done tons of outdoor triathlons ranging from sprint distance to Ironman, and this was my first ever indoor experience. Assembling gear for the indoor variety is far less nerve racking -- no bike helmet, wetsuit, or bike to pack! Toss in a trisuit (or swimsuit), and running shoes, and you’re set. That said, I struggled with the cycling shoes vs. run shoes only qu
estion quite a bit on race morning. The “long” distance course is 600yard swim, 6-mile bike, 3.1 mile run so most participants choose to cycle in running shoes. The transitions are looped into the swim and bike times (not separated out) so it’s worth it to be thoughtful on this approach. I opted to wear cycling shoes since that’s what I’m accustomed to.

The Y schedules its wave start times in 15-minute increments, meaning that groups of 8 go off in pre-assigned blocks throughout the morning. Izzy and I received a start time of 8:15am. Especially nice since I was on day 4 of a bad cold and needed the extra morning time to drain my head. We arrived 40 minutes early to check-in, get our chips (yes, it’s chip-timed!), review the bike settings, and set up our transitions. We were assigned to the same swim lane which made us happy. The volunteer lap counters in the pool were great. A carpeted runway got us from the pool, down the hallway and into the Midtown Y Sports Complex where the bikes were set up. I frequent this sports complex often, as it’s home to MN Futsal, an indoor soccer league that my son plays on every Sunday. It was terrific to be in this same arena with my daughter, watching Izzy scan her wrist chip as she made her way to an open bike next to me. These bikes were new to us and showed watts and cadence, but no speedometer so we all had to guess how fast we were spinning. After 6 miles, it was off the bike and onto the track for 25 laps of running. Volunteer lap counters were there to keep track of our laps, as we cruised around and around.

For both of us the run is where we shine. So many great cheers of support from the bike gallery and other race participants. One of the things I like best about the YW is the amazing show of support and kind words from other racers. I also absolutely LOVE watching my daughter run – she yelled at me to put my camera away, not wanting a run video, but I was simply taking a pic, she looked like a speedy gazelle on the track. Watching her complete the final discipline made me almost teary, Izzy’s first tri in the books!

Every participant received a high-quality finisher’s medal with a link to MTEC results after the race. So well organized and smoothly run. Thank you to the YWCA for putting on a great event! 

ED. Jennifer finished 2nd overall in the "long" tri. RESULTS