Yesterday I attended a clinic hosted by Tri It Now. It was held at the lovely Freedom Aquatic and Fitness Center which is located on the George Mason Manassas campus.

The clinic covered the following topics: run, swim, bike, nutrition, training, transition. The topics were presented by two long-time triathletes and coaches.

Run

If I had not just attended a running clinic a few months ago, I may have gotten more out of this session. We discussed proper running form and gear inside and then went outside for a warm-up run and to practice our cadence. The average cadence is 160 per minute, top athletes are 200+ per minute. I started at 168 and was able to push it to 183. I think I may start running with a metronome app on my phone so I can practice the higher cadence. There are a lot of articles about improving your running cadence online. They say that you are able to work less and run faster with increased cadence. I’m skeptical but I’ll give it a go!

Swim

This was, by far, the most challenging part of the day for me. I will write more tomorrow about why. In this section, we practiced about 6 drills including swimming on just one side and swimming with a kickboard held between our legs so they could check our rotation. It was a long and tiring workout for me but it was a huge help since I’m not a terribly strong swimmer. They said my form was good and that I should just keep practicing the drills. Another bonus is the fact that the clinic was held at the same location as my May event so I now know the pool. That is a big psychological boost for me!

Bike

In the bike portion, we mostly discussed various equipment and we practiced changing a tire. It helped that the race director  brought her Cervelo that is a kissing cousin to my borrowed bike so I was able to ask some questions about that particular bike and just look at it for the day. And, okay, I honestly caught myself thinking if she can ride in aero, so can I!

Training/Nutrition

I got the least from these two sections. They didn’t cover anything that a million training books don’t cover every single time. Though, one participant did ask questions so maybe it was new to someone??

Transition

Another helpful segment. The trainer with the bike brought all of her gear and set up her transition mat as if she were doing a race and then talked us through the entire race and transitions. They also covered a lot of the USAT rules and regulations (don’t ride your bike without your helmet on, even in the parking lot before the transition! Immediate DQ!!)

Overall: B+

It was a long day and they got off into the weeds a bit but I think it was well worth my time. The more I can expose myself to the various multi-sport concepts, the better. And, having a real swim coach help me for an hour was invaluable. If you are considering multi-sport, I highly recommend attending a similar clinic. Many Tri groups/organizations host them and it is a good way to get a better feel for the sport before you start buy a ton of gear or logging a million miles.