Cycling Is My Weakness

Considering that a triathlon contains 3 events, and one of those events is swimming, I never thought I would say this, but right now, cycling is my weakness. Over the past few weeks I have started to realize exactly how far I have to go in becoming comfortable on my bicycle. From riding a road bike for the first time, to riding longer distances and building confidence to ride on the road when necessary. When deciding to do a triathlon I focused more on my fitness and ability and didn't spend much time thinking of how to build confidence and a comfort level with the different disciplines.

The good news, I still have time. I have spent quite a bit of time researching training methods and putting together a plan that should have me ready by race day. I've also invested in some gear for my bicycle that will hopefully help to make a few things easier as well.

One big pitfall that I have found is there aren't very many good long distance bike routes that start in Grimes without having to deal with some roads with heavy traffic. This means that most of my training rides have required me to drive to a trail head somewhere which takes additional time that I often don't have. Last night I took a big step and found a good route that starts at home and can hook me up to either the Clive greenbelt trail or the Raccoon River Valley trail (both of which are extremely long trails). The route does require me to cross several busy roads and even travel short distances on some less busy roads, but I managed it without any harm. Hopefully this will help my training going forward.