Saratoga Springs Triathlon ... on a Fat Bike

Yesterday was the Saratoga Springs Triathlon. I had been talking for a while about doing it using my snow bike, and the night before actually got signed up for the event.

Back in the spring I was training for the Ice Breaker Triathlon thinking maybe I could win my age group and then switched to training for the South Pole Epic and didn't do the tri. So I haven't done any swimming or running since early March. The timing company still hasn't posted split data so all the following data is based off my Garmin 910XT

Swim - 20:35 

Last year I did the SS Tri without a wetsuit thinking the faster transition time would be better than the wetsuit. Big mistake! So this year I did the wetsuit, and even with the lack of training improved on my swim time, and more importantly I felt much better about my swim. I stayed on course a lot better, and didn't cramp up during the swim.

Fat bike in a sea of road bikes

Bike - 48:11

This is the fun part of the tri. I was passed by a lot of people on their road and/or tri bikes, but managed to pass a few people on mountain bikes, and even passed a couple of people on road bikes. I felt a bit bad for people getting passed by a fat bike, but with the noise the Bud and Lou tires were making on the road they knew I was coming.

Run - 28:05

Running uses different muscles than biking, and I usually end up real sore if I run a mile after not having run for a long time. I decided I really didn't care about my times, it was just about having fun doing a tri with a fat bike, so like the swim, bike, and transitions I just had fun and didn't try to push it. I was able to run the full distance and didn't end up with any muscle soreness the next day.

Official finish time is 1:40:29.2 which puts me near the bottom of the age group but I had a great time doing a Fat Bike tri.

Now back to getting ready for the snow and ice.