Photo By Tech. Sgt. Kyle Johnson | Lt. Michael Bakker, a Public Health Service physician’s assitant assigned to the...... read more read more
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Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is hosting its annual indoor sprint triathlon Feb. 20 at the Buckner Physical Fitness Center and interested parties can sign up now to participate.
The sprint triathlon is comprises three timed disciplines: 10 minutes of swimming, 15 minutes of running and 20 minutes of biking.
"On a traditional triathlon, you do the specific event until that distance is complete, then you move on to the next event," said John Limon, director of Buckner Physical Fitness Center. "In an indoor triathlon, because we have limited machines and availability, you do the event until your time is up and see how far you got. An indoor triathlon is much more friendly to all ability levels. Your advanced people will still have a better shot at winning, but you go at your own pace, everybody starts at the same time, everybody finishes at the same time."
The first event is the swim, after that, participants are allotted about a five-minute break to dry off. It is advised to bring something that can be quickly changed out of and into bike clothes to start the next event, Limon said.
"If you're late to the next station, that's time - and distance - missed, so whatever you do, it should be quick," Limon said.
This triathlon will use a different scoring system than triathlons hosted in the past, Limon said.
Instead of the winner being determined by total distance traveled among all disciplines, each discipline will have a set maximum score, or criterion distance. Participants' distances will be compared as a percentage of the maximum among the three disciplines and then averaged, Limon said.
"If you are in the swim and you only get to about 500 meters, then your criterion score is about 66 percent because you did 66 percent of the criterion distance in 10 minutes," Limon said.
This triathlon is intended to be a springboard for an upcoming outdoor sprint triathlon in August which will be distance-based, not time based, Limon said.
"It takes a considerable amount of work to do those," Limon said. "The people that do them are extremely happy they did, but you gotta train for it. We want to make sure people know it's coming, start training."
Other upcoming fitness events include a dodgeball tournament and a row/swim challenge in March, as well as a few different 5-kilometer running competitions.
For more information on JBER competitive fitness events, contact the Buckner Fitness Center at 384-1308.
"I think these events are great," said Public Health Service Lt. Michael Bakker, a physician's assistant assigned to the Indian Health Service and last year's sprint triathlon winner. "They are a great way to get a hard workout in and have a good time. When you get done with a hard workout, you feel great. It does release endorphins, but you feel like you've actually done something to improve your fitness."
| Date Taken: | 02.09.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 02.09.2016 12:42 |
| Story ID: | 188360 |
| Location: | JBER, AK, US |
| Web Views: | 43 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, JBER to host indoor sprint triathlon Feb. 20, by TSgt Kyle Johnson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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