Old Hickory Lake Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Started out swimming freestyle, then switched to breaststroke after maybe 50m. Breaststroke is actually a stonger/faster stroke for me, plus the benefits of easily seeing where I'm going. Also, I had heard that you should wear your goggles under your swim cap to avoid having them knocked off, I decided that wasn't necessary given the wave start.


Totally skip freestyle and just do what's fastest for me regardless of what everyone around me is doing.

Found my bike easily enough and quickly changed my shoes (decided to continue sockless) and slapped on sunglasses and helmet. Jogged with bike to mount area, and then stopped and got on. Snapped into pedals quickly (sometimes I have trouble with that) and I was off!

Need to figure out how to mount my bike faster, without stopping my forward motion.

Lots of people were stationed along the course to make sure you didn't take a wrong turn. This helped alot, because there were many turns.

Due to the hills, I had some rough sounding gear shifts. I was afraid I was going to drop my chain a few times it sounded so bad. Need to work on shifting techniques with hilly terrain. Also, I don't have aero bars and I think I'd like to get some (add 'em to the endless list).

At the very start of the chute into T2, the guy in front of me stopped right in the middle of the chute and almost caused a pile up. He then proceeded to walk along with his bike. I managed to get past him and was able to jog most of the way to my rack spot. This was prior to crossing the timing mat, so this incident was actually part of my bike time.

Beware of people in front, be prepared to stop quickly if needed. I had a bit of difficulty finding my rack spot (since it was empty). Prior to the race I forgot to scope out the "bike in" route to my spot. Next time I'll be sure to do that. Also, this would have been a good time to grab a gel to eat as I started the run.

RUN 1: I jogged from the boat ramp to my stuff and had a towel to stand on to wipe my feet. Then put on running shoes and decided to go without the socks that I had brought. They had bags to put your swim gear in which they would take to the finish, but I handed mine off to my family who were standing along the exit chute from transition (that was unplanned, but worked very well).
Run 1 was rough due to a large hill right at the beginning of the hill. Once I crested the hill, I felt much better. Also, the air quality today was quite poor and I felt like it was hard to breath during Run 1.
RUN 2: My running shoes were wet from the first run, which felt really good on my hot feet!

Running is definitely my weakest link. Need to work on speeding up. Remember albuterol inhalor.

Walked around for a few minutes and dumped water on myself. Then sat in the shade with my family and had a snack.


Running was abissmal. Breathing was also not so good at times due to the smog alert.


This was my very first tri, so I have nothing to compare to. However I had a great time and I'm hooked on this sport! Next race, 3 weeks!