Welcome!

Don't forget to HAVE FUN.

as others have pointed out, the fact that you are a competent swimmer is great. Open water swimmer? If not, that will be a new thing to learn. You're pretty far south for needing a wetsuit but wouldn't hurt to look into that too.

There's a really awesome Fitter in Plano, Trent Nix, who is also on the Forum here.

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Anne Barnes
ABBikefit, Ltd
FIST/SICI/FIST DOWN DEEP
X/Y Coordinator
abbikefit@gmail.com

Hi Barnes - I'm originally from Panama City, FL - somewhere I'm sure Ironman athletes are familiar with - and I grew up surfing, freediving, and generally being a bum on the beach. So, I'm fortunate enough to have some open water swimming exposure. Just, no racing exposure

There are several classes of trainers.

'Dumb' trainers have a fixed resistance curve and the amount of effort you need to put in is proportional to the rear wheel speed. The resistance element is typically magnetic (basically a shorted-out electric generator), a fluid pump, or an air fan. The air units will be noisy. Some of the magnetic ones have adjustable magnet positions and that can help you find a suitable range of resistance. Some of the fluid units have a resistance curve that is similar to what you might encounter while riding on the road, such that the 'distance' and 'speed' that you see while riding have an approximate relationship to being out on the road.
The better trainers have a wide base, a stout frame mount, and a good warranty on their parts. I have used a Kurt Kinetic "road machine" for years and it has been flawless. I know of some that developed noisy bearings - Kurt warrantied those, no questions asked. Saris and others also make good fluid and mag trainers.

That gets to the second useful/necessary part of having a trainer - recording your training sessions. In the absence of a power meter, you can use a rear wheel speed sensor to determine wheel speed and total wheel distance. Many of the established brands of trainers have a known power-speed relationship (within +/-15 percent, anyway) and training apps can use speed input from your data records to arrive at an estimate of the total work done. So in order to take advantage of that, you need a bike computer that can read and record data from wheel speed sensors. Bontrager, Garmin, Saris, Wahoo, and others make bike computers and sensors that will fit the bill there, at price points from under $200 to over $600.

Moving up the food chain from there requires either a power meter or a 'smart' trainer, so that you are directly measuring the effort you put in. I would suggest that is not justifiable at this point but you should certainly look around and see what others in your area are using.

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Less is more.

There are quite a few good triathlon clubs in North Dallas. Pm if you're interested I can give you links to some I workout with in the Frisco area.

you can find used cheap magnetic trainers for sale on craigslist for $30-50. fluid trainers are more but maybe you can hold out for a when bargain comes along. Do a little homework on this purchase.

Disagree. As a newbie at the sprint distance, I think it's about racing as much as possible, gaining experience, and enjoying the buzz.

I meant that in relation to other sports, you are going to be training a lot more than competing. Even if you race twice a month, you are still training 10x/race. I wasn't saying to not race, just there's a lot of time training.

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Oui, mais pas de femme toute de suite (yes, but I am not ready for a woman straight away) -Stephen Roche's reply when asked whether he was okay after collapsing at the finish in the La Plagne stage of the 1987 Tour

True that. I might be an outlier... as a newbie lat season, I did 3-4/wk pool during winter, but it feel off hard during the summer. I ran a bit, but my only biking was on race day. I tried to do an event every weekend and did a few Sat/Sun when there were events nearby.