Triathlons

I’m doing my first tri up in Luzhou next month, I’m assuming that the water will probably be pretty chilly, so does anyone have any idea where I’d be able to rent a triathlon wetsuit? While we’re at it, does anyone have any good advice for my first one? I’m a little nervous about the swim and I have a feeling I’m probably going to end up doing breast stroke for most of it :doh:

No wet-suit, and no advice, other than that you’re probably right to be nervous about the swim. You’ll swallow a fair bit of water, and get kicked in the head if there are more than a few other competitors.

Good luck :thumbsup:.

I’m doing my first triathlon in April but as part of a relay team in which I’ll be doing the swimming portion of the race. It’s an Ironman triathlon so I’ll be swimming 3.8k. Advice? Learn some sighting techniques (lots of examples on YouTube). Also, start on the outside, especially if you’re not a good swimmer since it will be crazy in the middle. You can start on the left if you breathe to the right (or feel more comfortable breathing to the right). I guess with breaststroke this wouldn’t matter. As far as wetsuit rental, maybe you’ll have some luck with this place:
http://www.funtriathlon.com.tw/

I don’t know if they do rent wetsuits but they would be the people to ask. When I bought my wetsuit, they had a good number of old ones sitting around to try on. Oh and by the way, this might be something that becomes very important considering the timing of next month for your triathlon: they might require a wetsuit if it’s too cold and they might disallow one if it’s too hot. I would ask some questions about this and then ask again about a week before the race. Good luck!

Thanks, that’s all good stuff, I prefer breathing on my left so I guess I’ll try and start on the right then. Do the people at that website speak English? How much did you pay for your wetsuit? I hope to do a few more in the future so maybe it’s worth buying one. Cheers.

I would guess that they don’t speak good English at that shop. If you went to the store, you could probably figure things out if your Mandarin isn’t that great. There’s a three-day weekend coming up next week.

And I paid a little over NT$5,000 for my wetsuit. It was made locally. The imported wetsuits are pricier (I can’t remember exactly how much more expensive but there was a big difference). I think most of the triathlons in Taiwan are in warm weather so I’m not so sure buying a wetsuit would really be necessary.

Do you mind if I ask which event you’re strongest in?

I’m a 1.40 half marathon runner and I’ve run a 40 minute 10k before, so I guess the running. I’m a decent cyclist too, it’s really just the swim that I’m a little weak in. Thanks for your help, I’ll try and check out that shop when I have the time.

Those are some very impressive times! I ran a lot in the past but was always a very average runner. I’m finding that I’m a bit better as a swimmer. Let me know if you ever want to do a triathlon as part of a relay team and I can take the swimming portion of that off your hands!

I’ve been meaning to ask, how did it go? I heard someone died during the swimming part of that. Is my information on this correct? I swam in a pool a week or so after that and I froze my ass off. I even had a wetsuit on. I hope you had a wetsuit.

That’s terrible if so. Although I’ve seen some very poor ‘volunteering’ at events lately, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that did happen.

i think volunteering just means asking to wear one of the nice orange T-shirts.

That’s terrible if so. Although I’ve seen some very poor ‘volunteering’ at events lately, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that did happen.[/quote]

http://www.cna.com.tw/news/asam/201403150210-1.aspx

I guess this article states that a swimmer went missing during the swimming portion of the triathlon held on March 15. Don’t know if it’s the triathlon you entered, but not too many triathlons this time of year so I assumed it was.

Anyway, I hope it went well for you. I’m getting ready for mine on 4/19 (I’m doing the swimming portion only as I think I mentioned in this thread before). During my hour-long swims I do once a week, I feel I can go forever. But the one I did outdoors a few weeks back was tough because of the cold water- even with my wetsuit on. My face felt like it was was slowly freezing and I couldn’t breathe naturally the whole time!

Yea that’s the one, and yea some guy disappeared during the swim. I didn’t know anything about it at the time, but I went to dunk my legs in the water for a while after I finished (the water was bloody freezing) and I saw a load of police divers lurking around. I’m actually surprised there weren’t more problems really, I did the olympic distance, they had a half ironman go first and I saw several people being pulled out the water before they’d even swum 20 meters.

As for me, it went ok, as I said the water was really cold, and no I didn’t have a swimsuit, but my body got used to it fairly quickly after the initial shock. Actually worse was getting out of the water. I swam breaststroke the whole way in the end, but hit my target of around 40 mins so that was fine. The cycle also went reasonably well, again hit my target time, but the the run was horrific, the worst run I’ve ever done. My pb for 10k is around the 40 minute mark, I did this one in an hour and 10 minutes, I just had nothing in my legs at all. Still it was good fun, there’s a couple in June that I’m considering doing, and maybe working up to a half ironman at the end of the year. Definitely need to train a lot harder for that though.

So I did the Challenge Taiwan triathlon on April 19th as part of a relay team. I did the swimming portion of that. It was a great experience overall. I swam the 3.8km in 1 hour and 16 minutes and I was happy with that time. I was aiming for 1:20:00 or better and I met my goal. I think I could do better the next time- if there’s a next time. Again, I really enjoyed it but I think I would enjoy the half distance (1.9km) even more. It would be a real joy trying to work on a time of 30 minutes or so for that distance, whereas I didn’t always enjoy those long swims getting ready for 3.8km. I would also be interested in the Olympic distance triathlon as something I try myself.

There were a lot of pros at Challenge Taiwan and many hardcore triathletes. I’ve never seen so many people in such good shape at a single location in my life! And since I was doing the relay and at the beginning of the race, I got to see so many interesting things. For example, the atmosphere after the swimming portion completely changed from a carnival scene into what I would best describe as a battlefield scene. The athletes coming in after the bike ride looked in serious pain- both physical and mental. For the full triathlon, imagine doing the swim for an hour and a half or so, cycling 180km, and then knowing you still had a marathon to run. The mental struggle they were going through was palpable. One guy sat down and just said f@#k! He then slowly stood up and made his way to his bag where he could store his cycling shoes and change into running shoes. Again it was like something you might expect to see on a battlefield, somewhere back behind the front lines where the soldiers stop periodically before going forward again.

I used to compete in Triathlons, might get back into it someday but I’m mostly into running these days. Good work on finishing and hitting two of your three time goals :thumbsup: I could have told you your run would be a little sluggish if you swam breaststroke in the swim though. Not only is it very slow, especially in choppy water, but it’s quite a bit more lower body intensive so by the time you get off that bike, how much leg strength could you really have left? For your next one, train freestyle but train with hand paddles. Get used to pulling a lot with your upper body in the swim, and save your lower body for the bike and run. :2cents:

the swim is the only place you really use your arms. Sure, you do use arms on the bike and on the run, but it’s a triathlon so the run and the bike are not steep and arms are auperfluous. Check Micheal Rasmussen’s arms for a good idea of a (doping) climber in cycling.

and Yes. that’s the polka dot jersey of the best climber in the TdF…

look at the fucking gloves!

[quote=“urodacus”]the swim is the only place you really use your arms. Sure, you do use arms on the bike and on the run, but it’s a triathlon so the run and the bike are not steep and arms are auperfluous. Check Michael Rasmussen’s arms for a good idea of a (doping) climber in cycling.

and Yes. that’s the polka dot jersey of the best climber in the TdF…

look at the fucking gloves![/quote]

Man, those are some puny arms. And I bet his legs are huge. The triathletes I saw at Challenge Taiwan were looking very good regardless of age- particularly the pros and the group that had a good time in past triathlons (they got to go first and wore a different color swimming cap). They had low levels of fat and were muscular in a balanced way.

And I agree with the comments made about breaststroke vs. freestyle. You need to save your legs for the other events. And breaststroke really is an inefficient stroke (too much drag and not a good way to propel yourself forward with your arms). I think most people know that but it is hard to make the transition. I know because I had to make the transition myself. But now, I almost never swim breaststroke except maybe as a way to cross train and work some different muscles.

2 Likes