# The New Ellerby Virtual Sprint Triathlon.



## Chris Hobson (Apr 11, 2020)

I found out yesterday that Ironman world champion Jan Frodeno is doing a virtual Ironman at home on Easter Saturday. This involves a 2.4 mile swim in an endless swimming pool, a 112 mile ride on a bike with turbo trainer and a 26.2 mile run on a treadmill. This has inspired me to do my own, slightly shorter, virtual triathlon in my home gym. It has occurred to me that, had I known a couple of months ago I could have done a half iron and competed against him. This would have been possible due to the fact that a world champion does the Ironman distance in about the same time that it takes me to do a half iron. The thought of doing a half marathon on a treadmill is pretty horrifying though. Anyway, not having had time to get properly race fit, a virtual sprint triathlon would have to do.

*The Swim*

Herr Frodeno has an endless swimming pool which is a small swimming pool with a built in current. This allows you to swim a measured distance against this current so it is the swimming equivalent of a treadmill or turbo trainer. Not having one of these, I simulated my swim using the lat trainer. I checked the records on the Garmin app for real swims which show that my stroke rate is close to one stroke per metre. With 11kg on the lat exerciser, I counted 25 reps and then turned around to face the opposite way on the bench and did 25 more. By turning around every 25 reps I successfully fooled my watch into recording the required 400 metre swim.

*The Bike*

This was done on the Charge single speed bike and CycleOps turbo trainer. During the ride I took on some Hi Five energy drink and two protein/energy bars. The Wahoo gadget on the bike transmitted the 20k ride to my watch and recorded it.

*The Run*

Since I’m actually allowed out to do one run I could have done the run on the disused railway path but, in the spirit of doing the whole thing as a virtual event, I did the run on the Roger Black treadmill. This is the toughest part for me. I’m still not really run fit and I find treadmill running pretty hard going anyway. I set it going at 5.5mph and gradually increased it to 6.5mph and held that for the duration. The watch records treadmill runs based on arm movements and is calibrated for the average sized man. It is possible to calibrate it to be more accurate but I find it to be pretty satisfactory as it is. The counter on the treadmill clocked 3.2 miles while the Garmin watch clocked 5k.

So there it is, my first virtual triathlon. I have considered putting in some training and doing the standard Olympic distance, 1500 metre swim, 20k bike and 10k run. The run on the treadmill would be the scary part for me, it would take about an hour and time feels as though it is standing still when on the thing.

Edit
I missed out an important detail in my report, the final finish time. Excluding transitions, which would normally be included, the total time was 1:36:09.


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## trophywench (Apr 11, 2020)

Love it!  years ago we happened to stay on a CL on a farm somewhere or another where the site owner had his own endless pool and gym which visitors and also village residents, could pay to use, so we booked a slot (an hour) and used the pool.  With the current turned on, it was too strong for both of us.


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## Chris Hobson (Apr 12, 2020)

I've seen one demonstrated at a triathlon show. The current was adjustable. Presumably you're saying that you couldn't even swim against the lowest setting? I've never used one so I don't know how I would fare, I'm a reasonable swimmer but not that good. My attempt at reproducing a swim was a bit lame but it was the best that I could come up with. I was pleased that I was able to fool my watch into thinking that I was swimming up and down a pool.


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## brisr949 (Apr 15, 2020)

Just Wow, really fair play to you.
Going by if your treadmill speed is accurate it looks like your treadmill recorded a much more accurate distance than your watch?


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## Chris Hobson (Apr 16, 2020)

If you look on the screen shot of the events on the phone, you can see that it displays the 5k run as 3.11 miles. So the two devices only disagree by 0.9 of a mile. Being someone who started school in the early 1960s, I am comfortable mixing up imperial and metric units. Of course you could fill a whole new thread with the imperial versus metric debate.


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## brisr949 (Apr 16, 2020)

Sorry, my bad i seemed to have read 5k as 5 miles.


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