An Ironman Triathlon may be the ultimate physical challenge that anyone can undertake. It begins with a 2.4-mile swim, followed by a 112-mile bike race, and concludes with a standard marathon of 26.2 miles. Thus, an Ironman competitor will cover 140.6 miles from start to finish, roughly equaling the distance between Columbus and Cleveland.

On February 17, I will take part in my first triathlon. The distance I and the other competitors cover will be far less than 140+ miles. We won’t even be close to the 70.3 miles of a Half Ironman. Yet this triathlon, sponsored by the Worthington Community Center, will be unique because all the events will take place indoors. The challenge for the competitors can be stated this way: How far can you go in 45 minutes with 15 minutes each spent swimming, biking, and running? Since the competitors will be inside the community center, they will swim in an indoor pool, pedal on stationary bicycles, and run on treadmills.

I began training for the Worthington Triathlon about two weeks ago. In years past, running would have been my strongest event, but since learning that I probably have torn cartilage in my right knee, bicycling is where I hope to excel. I often exercise on both upright and reclining Lifetime Fitness bikes, but the studio fitness bikes used in the triathlon will be different. Whereas a rider could maximize mileage by reducing the resistance level of a Lifetime Fitness bike to its lowest level, and then pedaling like mad, that approach won’t work with a studio fitness bike. With a studio bike, the speed is calculated by how fast you are pedaling and by how much resistance against which you are pushing. So putting the resistance level down to 1 or 2 is going to give you a rather slow speed no matter how fast you pedal. But putting the level too high will wear out your legs, which is bad, since the run on the treadmill is still ahead. The trick is to find a level that will allow a good steady speed without leaving you aching and exhausted.

I started cautiously with the studio bike, using low resistance levels (7-9) on my first training day and then gradually increasing them on the days that followed. On one particular day, I put the resistance at 12 and stayed around 20 mph for 15 minutes, covering 5.1 miles. That result pleased me, but the fatigue that hit me later did not.  I clearly had overdone it. In the last couple of days, I’ve stayed at 11, and covered less distance but without a physical slump later. If anything, I’m taking my treadmill training even more cautiously, since the last thing I want is to aggravate the torn cartilage. In my first turn on the treadmill, I settled for a fast walk and covered less than a mile. Since then, I’ve mixed walking with jogging and pushed my 15-minute distance up to 1.21 miles. As long as there is no weakness or pain, I’ll keep slowly but steadily raising my speed.

At this point, I haven’t done any preparation for the swimming portion of the competition. I know I will be doing the breast stroke, since that is less exhausting than freestyle, and will let me conserve energy for the biking and running. Every participant will get a T-shirt as well as a goodie bag, but I’m hoping to be one of the top three finishers in my age group. There aren’t likely to be a huge number of triathletes over 65, but those who do enter will probably be in decent shape. Actually, if I can cover 7 miles in 45 minutes of swimming, biking, and running, I’ll be more than satisfied. My second posting in February will deal with my indoor triathlon performance. Wish me luck!