Tri the Midlands - TriathlonSprint

Round turn one and the sun was blarring. Couldn't see 2nd buoy for about 75 meters. Once I picked it up it was smooth sailing. Couldn't find feet b/c I feel everyone I got behind was having trouble sighting and their feet would go off to the left or right. I would look up to sight and was right on target so held my line.

Couple of competitors were pretty rude/impatient. My sighting was spot on and 3 different times someone pushed my legs down to crossover me. Didn't understand it but w/e. It was a pretty large wave so expected some contact, overall it was a very pleasant swim with plenty of open water.

The exit was small but I didn't get bottlenecked and it was a shoreside exit with clean sandy bottom. Run through the woods with a green matt laid down going up to transition. 100ish yards to timing matt. I thought it was going to be a problem but it was not.

Not much really, I need to swim more to get my time down but overall it wasn't bad. I wasn't quite as relaxed early on as I had wanted to be and that effected my breathing some but after I told myself to breathe and relax it was as good or better of a swim than I expected.

Transition was pretty good I thought. The fastest that I saw was :46 and the winner went through with :51. Being only 14-9 seconds slower than some of the better transitions made me feel pretty good.

Have a little more energy out of the water so I could get to my bike and out on course a little quicker other than that it was really good.

I wanted to slam the bike kinda hard and keep the watts up. I was really hoping for better than 20.4mph avg. but I'll take it. (21.2 according to computer data, more of what I thought I'd do, would have like to see 22, maybe next time)

Pretty pleased overall and really ate up some guys that blew up on a couple of the hills. So thankful for the hill work I've been doing in training.

Not drop my water bottle. Yeah, I was on the 2nd section of rough road and had my bottle in my hand hanging out on the bars, hit a bump and see ya, bottle went flying. I had it in my right hand so it immediately went off the side of the road and nobody had to dodge it but still disappointing. I knew two things right away 1) I wasn't going back to get it. I was at mile 9ish of 14 and had been pretty good about grabbing a drink up till then. 2) I was gonna really want water early in the run. And didn't have a water bottle waiting at T2.

T2 entrance was tricky. Already had my shoes under my feet and was ready for flying dismount. The entrance narrowed up quick and was downhill with an "S" bend type curve right before hitting the matt. Went in really hot with about 3 or 4 other guys and felt like I wasn't going to get slowed down before the matt. My first step off the bike was onto the matt so I was cutting it really close.

Got the bike racked fairly well but took a little long with my shoes than I wanted. Probably should have shaved 10-15 seconds off the transition.

Slow down a little and lose 1 or 2 seconds in order to make the entrance into T2 safer.

Keep an extra bottle of water with my bag/area.

Pretty hilly, small incline for the first 800-1000m right off the bike and the calves went pretty tight. Tried to relax and wait for my body to tell me when to go and push and I think that strategy played out well.

Pre-race prep for the run was horrible. I had no idea what the run course consisted of and I think I payed the price. If had known what was coming I think mentally I would have been better prepared for the run.

Water and bannana. Walked around for about 10 mins.


Run-course knowledge and lack of training in the swim dept. I need to bike more as well but don't think it hurt me as much as the other 2 areas.


Overall great experience and if I decide to do a Sprint next year would definitely consider doing this one if nothing else to see if I could improve my time. It was hosted in a housing division and the locals were really great, one couplde were holding garden hoses set up with a rain type nozzle and were hosing off runners at around the 200-300m mark. I definitely took advantage of their service.

Was pretty suprised by the time actually (1:15:02) b/c my on paper expectations were around 1:20:00. So maybe my goal was a little too generous but I am very pleased with my race time and my AG top 10 position. If I add the extra distance using my avg run time it would be around 1:18:30 which makes my pre-race prediction much more reasonable. Minus some time for the extra .5 on the bike so back down to around 1:17:00ish. So still great race time vs my pre-race predictions.

Another good race by SetUp Events except for the very shortened run, it was a simple out and back and it could have easily been moved up .2mi to make up the distance. If I had to put it on a scale I'd say 7/10, still a great race for the SetUp Team and the volunteers and directions on the bike course were outstanding so still a very good job and enjoyable race experience overall.