I’ve done the Dri–Tri multiple times over the years. And I feel like every time I do it, there is a new lesson or challenge that I learn. My first Dri-Tri was a huge learning experience. I had no idea how to pace myself for it and I really messed up by going too hard on the rower. I’ve worked on improving that every time since. I also learned lessons with how to modify the floor work and how to split things up to make things easiest on me (it’s still hard, but it helps when I split some exercises into smaller intervals). And for cardio, I’ve learned so many lessons on the treadmill. And my last Dri-Tri was the first for me on the bike so that was another new experience.
So when I was getting ready for my Dri-Tri this past weekend, I had all those lessons in mind. I remembered lots of things that I struggled with before and tried to keep those experiences in mind when I was thinking about my game plan. And I honestly did feel ready for it the day before. And then I made a dumb choice and went out the night before. I didn’t think I would be out that late, and it ended up being a much later night than I thought. And by the time I was home and in bed, I struggled to fall asleep. I maybe got 2 hours of sleep combined that night as little 20-30 minute bursts. It wasn’t good and it was a dumb decision to go out the night before. But I couldn’t do anything to change that before the Dri-Tri.
I did have work before going to Orangetheory and at least that wasn’t too stressful. And there was about an hour between work and the Dri-Tri so I used that time to relax and focus on what I wanted to do. I knew that being tired was going to affect how things went, but I really wanted to do just a little better than I did last time. My bigger goal was to be under 50 minutes again, but I wasn’t sure if that would be possible.
Well, I was right that I couldn’t do it in under 50 minutes. I didn’t even do better than I did the last time. It actually ended up being my slowest Dri-Tri time ever. And that was really frustrating for me. I tried so hard and it didn’t have the results I wanted it to have. But I also was aware that being so tired was working against me.
But despite having my slowest time ever, I did have some really good moments in the event. First, I finished. That’s awesome because not everyone can do the Dri-Tri. Being able to complete it is an accomplishment and I shouldn’t look down on that.
When we are doing the 2000-meter row, we are told to keep the stroke rate lower than we think it should be since it is such a long row. That has been something I have been working on since my first Dri-Tri and it is getting better for me each time. I try to zone out a bit during the row and just focus on not stressing about going faster. I’m usually able to stay steady with the stroke rate and that’s something that continued this time.
But we are also told to keep an eye on the 500-meter split time on the computer. That time moves based on how fast and how hard you row. And doing a long row usually means that the number will get higher (and it will take you longer to complete a 500-meter split). I have seen this happen in my rowing a lot and I hate how much fluctuation there is. I usually have a great split time for the first half or so, and then it gets much higher than I would like it to be. But for some reason this time, I was able to keep my split time within 1 second except the first few strokes and the last 150-meters. It was so steady that I wondered if the computer broke and it was stuck. But then I’d see it go down and back up 1 second and I knew that it was just me being able to keep it steady.
On the floor section of the Dri-Tri, there isn’t much I can do to change which exercises I can do. I modify things like being on my knees for the push-ups, using the bench for the plank jacks and burpees, and doing lunges instead of step-ups. I try to find new tricks that might help me, but there aren’t a lot of things I can try. What I did this time was split the lunges up differently so one side wasn’t getting as tired as it has in the past. I tried to just focus on each exercise at a time and not what was coming up next. And I didn’t pay attention to what people were doing next to me. I didn’t realize that I was the last one to finish the floor until I was walking to the bike.
Using the bike for the Dri-Tri is still a new thing for me and I’m still learning a lot. I knew this time that I wanted to not worry about the resistance levels and just set it to my base pace level. When I got on the bike, I was so tired and it felt like I would be on there forever. I also knew by the time I was on the bike that there was no way I would be doing better than my last Dri-Tri so I had that affecting my mood a bit. But I tried to not think too much about it because there was nothing I could do at that point to change that.
I was able to keep it at my base resistance level for about the first half of the bike challenge. But it was starting to get really hard and I was slowing down a lot. So I dropped the resistance level lower to make the bike easier on me. I wanted to pedal as fast as I could since that was going to help me get to the final distance more than the resistance levels would. I was breaking the bike portion down into small chunks and trying to celebrate whenever I finished another small chunk. And I tried to limit how often I took a sip of water since I have to stop pedaling to get my water. So each water break stopped my progress and I didn’t want to do that too much.
When I was done, I was so tired. I wanted to lay down and rest, but I knew that doing that wouldn’t be great for my body. So I sat down and worked on stretching for a while before getting back up to cheer on the people still finishing their 5K on the treadmills. It’s so important for me to cheer on the other finishers because I know what it feels like to not have the same amount of encouragement and cheering as people who were faster than me. And it’s awesome watching someone finish who might not have thought they could do it.
In the end, while I had a slow Dri-Tri and I didn’t accomplish what I wanted to, I still finished and had a great time. It’s a challenge that I look forward to doing, even if while I’m in the middle I wonder what I have done to myself. But every time I finish, it’s a great reminder of how much I have accomplished and how strong I have become. I’m already planning on doing the next Dri-Tri and seeing what new lessons I can take from this past one and apply it to the next. Maybe that one will finally get me back under 50 minutes.
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