Cooper Summer Sprint Triathlon at Craig Ranch - TriathlonSprint

I swam about as well as I was expecting - right around my practice times (about 20 sec slower after taking out time for getting in/getting out). I was passed by 3 people and passed 1 person so I think I was where I needed to be in line. In fact, my seeding was 363 and I was 351 overall - pretty close! I improved quite a bit from my OWS time from two weeks ago but the 2:42/100m pace still stands to be the largest opportunity for me to gain time in the next few months.

Need to continue to work on better stroke technique and form. I'm definitely doing something wrong so I need to arrange for a few more lessons. I think I'm going to join a Masters swim program as just swimming lots of laps with bad technique is messing up my left shoulder.

This went very well. I rubber-banded my shoes and left them on the bike and it also helped that the surface was smooth concrete so I could really run without getting bits of gravel and rough asphalt causing pain. I also had a rack that was closest to the swim but furthest from the mount line, which meant I had to run farther with my bike. Pretty happy with this overall - 7th fastest in T1 for my age group!

Only thing I would try to improve on is to get up to a faster speed before trying to put my feet in my shoes. I should also remember to tighten my straps a little bit more.

This was my strongest event though I was struggling finding the right gear/cadence. I may also have pushed a little bit too hard but my race strategy was to try and go a bit harder on the bike. I was passed once by a guy zipping through in a full aero set-up and did most of my passing here.

Get my cadence higher on average (I kept finding myself in the mid 80's vs low-mid 90's). I also need to refrain from surging too hard and keeping the effort even. I'm still on a road bike, and not a tri bike and I think that most of the people that finished ahead of me were on tri-bike set-ups.

T2 went very well...I had my feet out of my shoes at the right time. However, I was going to do the flying dismount that I had been practicing but the person in front of me unexpectedly braked hard and I decided to abort the fancy dismount (I already had my right leg stretched back and was about to bring it to my left side) and just stopped the bike hard and came down with the bike still between my legs. I don't think I lost that much time though as I ran the bike onto the rack. Only problem I had was that I forgot to get my Garmin off my bike! I had no heart rate/cadence/distance/pace data at all on the run but in hindsight, it was probably a good thing because I would've taken at least an extra 3-5 seconds to get my Garmin off the bike...and I was only 2 seconds faster than the next guy in my age group! Also, I was the 3rd fastest guy in T2 in my age group :)

Continue to work on flying dismount. Might save a couple of seconds there. I may also try just wearing my Garmin on my wrist during the bike. My bike computer shows heart rate and cadence data anyway so I don't need to have the Garmin on the bike.

Since I pushed a bit hard on the bike, and then forgot to get my Garmin from the bike during transition so I was running without my normal data. I was definitely suffering on the run and it's the first time in a long while that I had side-stitches coming on so I was likely out of control with my breathing. I had to focus and tried to get my breathing under control several times during the run. Wish I had my Garmin data to see how I paced it. I felt like I was starting to fade in the last mile and I didn't start my kick until about 200m from the finish, which was a bit late. Oh yeah - probably a good idea to check whether the cup contains Gatorade or water - I had gotten water the first 2 water stations - so I assumed (incorrectly!) that the last one also handed me water. Well - I poured it over my head since I was overheating and realized it was Gatorade when I tasted the sweetness as it dribled down my head :)!

Start kick a little earlier. Need to work on better run technique.

Ran to the car to get my camera so I can take pictures. I then ended up taking advantage of the free massage - those Cooper Spa people were awesome!


Lack of technique in swimming - I'm not expecting to be a fast swimmer but I think I should be able to improve fairly quickly - I was in the bottom 10% of my AG in the swim! I also need to continue to work on my run - especially endurance.


I definitely enjoyed the Cooper Sprint - great environment, great management, awesome volunteers. They could have posted the results with more updates as they didn't bother to update the results board at the end so some people who came in later didn't get to see their times until the online results were available.