Saint Joseph College (women-only): Sunday, February 12, 2012
Event flyer: 2012 SJC Women’s Indoor Triathlon Flyer
Registration form: 2012 SJC Entry Form

Mandell JCC (women-only): Sunday, April 1, 2012
Event flyer: 2012 Mandell JCC Women’s Indoor Triathlon Flyer
Registration now open.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about TTNE’s Indoor Triathlon Events.
We hope we answer many of your questions and concerns below.

Why is there a lottery for the Saint Joseph College (SJC) Indoor Triathlon this year?
For the past five years, this event has sold out within days.  The advantage has always gone to those who are able to hand deliver their registration to the O’Connel Center at Saint Joseph College.  We have thought long and hard about a system that will level the playing field and allow those women from farther away to participate in this exciting and popular event.

How does the lottery work for the Saint Joseph College Indoor Triathlon event?
The registration form will be available for download on January 3, 2012 (see above). At this time, you can fill out the registration form, include payment and mail or hand-deliver to the O’Connell Center on the SJC campus in West Hartford.  All registration forms MUST be submitted in a sealed envelope. If you are hand delivering, please put SJC Indoor Triathlon on the front of the sealed envelope).  All forms must be postmarked by January 21. Lottery results will be emailed and posted here on January 25. The wave schedule and list will be announced (via email) on January 31. Your cash or checks will not be deposited unless you have been chosen.

Can we still pick a person or group to be in the same wave?
Yes. You can choose up to 5 women with whom you would like to share a wave.  This year, we are limiting the group to 6 women (including you!).  Your registration forms MUST be submitted together IN the same envelope. There are NO EXCEPTIONS!

Will there be a waiting list?
Yes. We will pick the waiting list at the same time as the first 96 lottery winners are chosen.  You can email dfiske@sjc.edu to find out what place you are on the waiting list.  If you are #1-12, you have a good chance of being in the event.

What is the order of the triathlon?
Swim, Bike, Run

Read below to learn more about each leg of the triathlon.

Swim:
You will wear a swim suit or a tri-suit.  Approximately 18 lengths equals ¼ mile.  When you get out of the pool, you will NOT remove your swim suit.  You will dry off with a towel and put on a shirt, shorts, socks and sneakers and head to the biking section.

Some women swim with a workout bra under their swim suit or put it on over the swim suit after the swim, if necessary.  Some swim suits have a built in bras that work just as well. You can choose to wear biking shorts and then run in them as well.  We recommend only changing into shorts one time.  So decide which shorts (running, biking or a compression type short) you want to wear and stick with it.

Bike:
All of the bikes will have cages for sneakers as well as clips (for spd cycling shoes).  You do NOT need to bring a helmet or biking gloves.

Run:
Saint Joseph College: The run will take place on an indoor running track.  It is 14 laps to a mile.  You should be able to go right to the run from the bike, unless you need to change from your bike shoes to your running shoes.
Mandell JCC: The run will be outside. It is a well-marked 2 laps.  Two laps is 3 miles.  You will be timed. Depending on the weather, you might want to add another layer for warmth.
Farmington Valley and Indian Valley Family YMCA: The run will be 20 minutes on a treadmill.  The distance you run in the allotted time will be recorded.

Transition:
Each athlete will have a transition area to put all of your gear. Your area will be clearly marked with your individual race # (but it may be small).  You will keep all of your gear at this area.  Please do not leave anything in the locker room. We do not time you during the transition.  For the safety of the participants, we don’t want anyone rushing around on wet, slick floors.  However, we will encourage you to hurry up to the next event, safely, of course.

All areas will be clearly marked.

How Distances Are Tracked:
Swim: Volunteers will be tracking the number of swim lengths you swim in the allotted time. One end of the pool to the end is considered one length.  If you are in the middle of the pool when the time is up, we will give you that extra bit and count a full length for you.  We’re nice like that.
Bike: In some cases, the indoor bikes will have odometers.  A volunteer will track the distance you rode. If there are no odometers, we encourage you to follow the leaders guided ride and enjoy yourself.
Run: If you are running on a track, volunteers will count your laps.  If you’re running on a treadmill, a volunteer will track your distance run during the allotted time. If you are running a specific distance outside, you will be timed.

How is the winner determined?
While we really believe that this type of event should be considered a great “workout,” we know that many of the participants do want to know how they did in comparison to others.  As athletes, we can relate to that.

Not every indoor triathlon scores the same way.  Here is how any event run in collaboration with Team Training New England is calculated.
We determine which athlete swam the most lengths, biked the longest distance and ran the farthest (if on a treadmill or track) or ran the fastest time if the run distance is constant.  That person (or persons) will get 100 points.  The other participants will receive a % of 100 points.

For example, if a person swims 50 lengths in 20 minutes, he/she will get 100 points. If another person swims 40 laps, he/she will get 80 points.
The same calculation is done for the bike and run leg as well.

At the end, we add up the points each person receives for the swim, bike and run.  The total # of points a person could get is 300.  The person with the highest points is considered the “winner.”  When we post the results on our website, we only post race #s, no names.  All results are anonymous.

What do I bring for each leg?
Swim:
Swim suit. Goggles. Swim cap. Towel. Flip flops to wear on the pool deck.  You will be able to leave them by the side of the pool and grab them after your swim.
Bike: Biking shoes/running shoes. Shorts. Shirt
Run: Running bra (women only). Shorts. Shirt

Other stuff: Bring water bottle. Change of dry clothes. Towel for showering.  If you aren’t sure about something, bring it.

To save time, arrive at the facility with your swim suit on underneath your clothes or sweats. If you’re going to shower at the facility after your triathlon, don’t forget underwear (don’t laugh, it happens a lot).

2011 Indoor Triathlon Results:
September 25
2011 Fall Mandell JCC Indoor Triathlon Results
April 11
2011 Mandell JCC Indoor Triathlon Results
March 20
2011 Indian Valley Family YMCA Indoor Triathlon Results
March 6
2011 Farmington Valley YMCA Indoor Triathlon Results
February 13
2011 Saint Joseph College Indoor Triathlon Results

2010 Indoor Triathlon Results:
2010 Mandell JCC Indoor Triathlon Results
2010 Saint Joseph College Indoor Triathlon Results

And, of course, all of that is true for some triathletes, but for those participating in Team Training New England (TTNE), run by Lynne Tapper and Janice Cohen in the Hartford area, the process is rarely just about the miles and feats of endurance.

Marlanda Hamilton, a rising sophomore on the volleyball team at Saint Joseph College, did not even know how to swim. But when her coach told her about a scholarship offered by TTNE, which included free gear, eight weeks of twice-weekly training sessions and the fee for a competition in Massachusetts, Marlanda didn’t hesitate to sign up.

An elated Marlanda after an open water swim workout

“I actually learned how to swim two weeks before the first TTNE meeting,” she said, while sitting in the lobby of the O’Connell Center for an interview. “I had some friends in the pool with me showing me the basics of the freestyle stroke.”

TTNE already had strong ties to Saint Joseph College because they often used the college’s facilities for their training sessions.
“During our second year of TTNE,” Lynne Tapper says, “we approached Saint Joseph College about using their facilities. We cold-called Debbie Fiske (Associate Athletic Director). We loved the idea of working with an all-women college for our all-women training groups.

“They were really generous from the start. In 2007 Debbie  did her National Girls and Women in Sport Day, which is part of a national event put on by the Women Sports Foundation. I had actually worked with that myself and was always a bit frustrated that they had so much for girls but not women, especially the pre-Title IX crowd.  So I pitched the idea to Debbie that we run an indoor event in February for women as well. It was open to anyone. We’ve done it several winters now and the last one had more than 100 competitors.

“So when Janice and I decided we wanted to give a scholarship to someone, Saint Joseph seemed like a fine place to start. The fact that triathlons take a lot of time, energy and money to train for can mean there are a lot of barriers [to participation] and we wanted to open it up to a wider range.”
Marlanda, who turned 19 during the summer training, admits that she felt particularly intimidated by the age difference.

Marlanda and her teammates

“I was intimidated by being around such a different group of people [mostly white, middle-aged women] but it felt like a family environment and everyone was great.”

As many as thirty women enrolled in the TTNE summer 2010 program might show at any given workout, which meant there were always plenty of buddies to do laps with and to get pointers from. Some were moms with young children who wanted a break; others were challenging themselves after devastating injuries or a lifetime of inactivity. They shared the common purpose of building better physical health and trying to compete in and complete the Massachusetts State Triathlon on July 18 at Lake Dennison. The task: 1/3 mile swim in a lake; 12 mile bike ride (including a mile hill climb) and 3.1 mile run.

Marlanda herself had two jobs at the time, but dropped one so she could handle the training schedule better. Her Dunkin Donuts supervisor accommodated her needs so she continued to work there. Some days her mother could bring her to the track sessions with the group or to the pool, but other times she had to load her gear onto a city bus and make her way over to wherever TTNE might be meeting.

RACE DAY
Marlanda rose at 5:30 a.m., put her new bike in her mother’s van and together they made their way from their hotel to the start of the race.
Six hundred or so competitors—men and women—mingled at the start as they received their numbers, an ankle bracelet that would keep track of their times on each segment, and hit the marker station where a volunteer penned on each athlete’s body his or her number and age.

Marlanda was in the pink swim cap group, which included women of all ages. They waited on the beach while the first wave of male competitors entered the water.
“They looked like they were going to war,” Marlanda says of the men.

Marlanda and her proud coaches

THE SWIM
Two weeks of lessons with friends, seven weeks of training at various pools and now Marlanda Hamilton had to race with competitors in an open lake in record heat. TTNE Coach Janice Cohen had looked into getting a swim buddy for Marlanda at the Massachusetts event, which the organizers approved. So the Saint Joseph College volleyball player found herself towering over a man named Geo on the beach, her swim buddy, who swam by her side and coached her through her breathing and strokes as she made her way around one huge orange floatable marker to the next.

THE BIKE
Hundreds of bicycles lay racked in dozens of rows and as the athletes came out of the water, through an inflatable arch and into the bike launch area, things got confusing fast.

“I went in the wrong direction at first,” Marlanda admits. “But there was no one else around so I just collected myself and found my bike and got started. I did forget to turn my heart monitor on.”

In each section of the race, Marlanda found a “partner” to work with. At the swim section, Geo was assigned to her, but on the bike, she just picked out someone going at the same pace. Together with her newfound friend, she tried to tackle the one mile hill.
“We thought we’d just finished it but then we saw the sign, ‘Crush the Hill’ on the side of the road, so we knew it was still ahead. I wanted to stop but I kept going and going.”
Once she got over the top, most of it was downhill.

“I admit to doing a little sightseeing at that point,” she says, laughing and flashing her perfect smile.

THE RUN
Many athletes struggle with the transition from the intense bike ride to the run. Legs wobble. Backs seize up. Feet cramp. Once again, Marlanda found someone in her pace range and chatted and teamed with that person to help her pace herself through the race.

THE FINISH LINE
A group of TTNE competitors in blue shirts were already at the finishing line with their cow bells cheering on fellow teammates as they crossed the finish line. Marlanda says seeing that group was one of the highlights of the entire training for her.

Of course her mother, Michelle Hamilton, who was also there, admits, “It was so nerve wracking. I was really nervous that she was doing this event, but she always does things that no one else would do.”

Now, when she goes to work at the Dunkin Donuts, Marlanda is known as the Tri-girl. “I don’t mind that!” she says.

She’s ready to try again, possibly for the indoor in February, only this time no swim buddy and “I want my volleyball team to join me.”

Mary Collins
penmary@aol.com
www.marycollinswriter.net
Mary Collins’ new book, American Idle: A Journey Through Our Sedentary Culture, won the Grand Prize for Nonfiction at the 2010 Indie Book Awards.
She completed the sprint triathlon at Lake Dennison with Marlanda.

The following gear and services were generously provided by Team Training New England, Newington Bicycle, Fleet Feet Hartford, Trek Bicycle, Heart Zones Coaching, Max Performance, Courtyard Marriott Fitchburg:  a new road bike; running shoes; triathlon suit, swim goggles, program fee, race registration and hotel accommodations.