Teresa Keeps Making Progress Toward First Triathlon

A couple of weeks ago, Teresa came into Ben's needing to rent a bike to prepare for her first triathlon. We asked her to keep us up to date since she was not an experience cyclist, and her story might inspire others to start riding more. We're thrilled she's making so much progress!


Here is her original story.

Here is what she wrote on June 19:
"My training is going well. I've started swimming every day during my lunch hour and I run about 3x a week after work. On the weekends I have been taking 10-ish mile bike rides on the Oak Leaf trail. 

I was very surprised at how slow I am on the bike. It's going to take me forever to finish the bike portion if I don't speed up. I plan to go to Pewaukee this weekend and ride the 17-mile bike trail to get a feel for the hills and see how long it takes me now. I also am starting to do brick workouts, which are combining two events in one workout to practice adapting muscle groups. Swim to bike is fine, bike to run is difficult."

Here is her report from Monday:

"The Pewaukee Lake Triathlon has a mandatory swim clinic for all first-time triathletes. I attended a session today which was great. I have been swimming a lot in the pool at my gym, but being in the open water with other swimmers was way different! It was great to experience that and I feel a lot more prepared. Besides the swim, the instructors gave us newbies tips on how to effectively swim with others (e.g. if we're slow, keep left and take wide turns to lessen the chance of getting swam over). The instructor also answered all our newbie questions about the triathlon day. I've been having nightmares about not being able to find my stuff in the transition area and she calmed my fears.

I also had a great weekend ride on Saturday. I went to Fond du Lac to ride with a friend of mine. I thought I was really slow, but it turns out I just needed my seat moved up and a little more air in my tires!  I averaged around 14mph rather than 10 mph which I'm happy about. Having a speedy cycling buddy to lead me probably helped too! I also downloaded Strava which is a really cool way to track my rides and compare myself to other riders. Overall I'm really excited about my cycling progress.

After my ride last weekend, and the swim clinic tonight, I feel pretty good about those two disciplines. Running is still my least favorite, but I'll be focusing more on that the week before the triathlon because I'll be away from my bike and pool while I am in Colorado."