Run, run, as fast as you can

Not sure if we've blogged about it, but I've done a few practice sprint triathlons at the gym. Here's how it works:

• Swim 750 meters (our gym has a 25 meter pool, so I do 30 lengths. I usually just count the laps, so it's 15 times touching the same end of the pool).
• Get out, towel dry as quick as possible, toss on clothes, then hop on a stationary bike. 
• Bike 12.5 miles. I usually try to add a little resistance (not too much b/c I'm not a powerful biker). 
• Go over to the treadmill and run 3.1 miles. I add a percent or two incline to simulate wind resistance on a flat trail. 

I've done three or four of these with times all around an hour and a half (plus or minus 10 minutes or so). My fastest section is swimming, then biking (which was a surprise), then running. This last time I did mine in reverse order, which is kind of cheating since getting ready to swim is easier than drying off after swimming.

• Treadmill: 40 minutes. The first part was walking to warm up my legs, which didn't actually help that much. I've been getting significant shin splints when running recently - annoying! 
• Biking: 25 minutes. I actually have no idea how accurate the distance tracking is on the bikes I use, but I generally try to keep my RPMs up over 100/105. So I'm using a pretty easy gear. 
• Transition time: 8 minutes. That included resting and drinking water as well as changing 
• Swimming: 14.2 minutes. 52, 54, 55, 56, 59, 56, 57, 58, 55, 60, 56, 57, 60, 59, 57 (seconds per 50 meters). This was the part I was happiest with, since I was able to not go over 2 minutes in any 100 meter length, which was a first for me. 

My next goals are to:

• Get my run time under 25 minutes (8 minute miles instead of 12+). It may be time for some new shoes to help with the shins, since my current ones are pretty beat up. 
• Add some harder gears (fake hills) to the bike portion 
• Eventually add some hills to my run portion. 
• Actually go run a real one instead of in the gym. This would require having a bike. Hmm.

It occurs to me that if other people want to participate we could each go to our own gyms on the same day and have a virtual triathlon together. If anyone is interested, let me know. It would be good motivation.