No Label Triathlon - Triathlon

I went out way to fast to start. I think the adrenalin and the pressure to not hold up the people behind me led to that. I don't know if it was the adrenalin or the pool but I was making my turns way too close to the wall at first and actually have a bruised heel from hitting very hard on one of them.

I caught the guy in front of me about 1/3 of the way through and it was at that point I realized I was going to hard. There was no one close behind me so I took a couple of big breath open turns to put some space between the guy in front of me and recover a little. I was hurting and couldn't believe I still had so many lanes to go.

I was able to settle into a much slower pace and finish the swim in ok shape, but definitely not ideal condition coming out of the pool.

Trust my speed in the water and try to have a much more even split. If I had been slower at the beginning I could have maintained that speed throughout and finished with the same time, but been in much better shape going into T1 and the bike.

Working way to hard in the pool made this an interesting experience. I bust out of the pool building and turn to run toward the T1 area. I hear my wife yelling "There's daddy!! Go daddy go!!" I see her and my kids and my parents so I run over to give the kids a high five. I hadn't prepped them for this so they had no idea what to do (they're 2 and 5). It was pretty funny. I think the suddenness of me appearing confused them.

I run to my bike, throw my goggles at my bag and put on my sunglasses and helmet. I feel like my arms are shaking and my vision is blurry. Immediately my sunglasses fog up. I take them off and hook them on my suit collar. Get in my shoes and go.

The race started at 7 am and the official sun rise wasn't until 7:20. The sunglasses weren't necessary and I shouldn't have even messed with having them there. Maybe some clear glasses, but with them fogging up they wouldn't have been of any help either. I don't ever remember wishing I had anything covering my eyes on the bike, so from now on unless it's going to be bright I'm not going to worry about glasses.

Could have shaved a few seconds off by not trying to high five the kids, but it was worth it. That afternoon they were riding their bikes and scooters around the cul-de-sac and they'd do a lap on the bike/scooter then jump off and run a lap and they'd high five as they ran by. Good stuff.

note: on the attached bike data, I forgot to hit the garmin when I got to T2 so you'll see about a minute of flat data at the end that affected the averages.

Holy crap was I out of it when I first jumped on the bike. There were a couple of quick left turns right out of the gate before the first long straight away. I don't remember this section very well. I don't think anyone passes me early on.

Once on the straight away I settled into my aero bars and was hitting my target of 22-23 mph. I was hurting but happy with the pace. A few miles I got passed by a couple of guys, one of which is a guy I know, and I knew he was going to pass me so I was ok with it as I was still hitting my pace.

Right before the first right turn of the big rectangle I got passed by a guy that started the swim only a couple of people behind me. He never got more than 20 yards in front of me for the whole next 2 straight aways. I did notice that when I got out of the saddle to get back up to speed on the corners, my calves were trying to cramp on me.

At some point on the second of the two straight aways I was behind him I realized I wasn't in as much pain anymore even though I was still hitting my pace. As we rounded the third right turn another guy passed me. So now I'm sitting behind two guys and feeling way too good for this sprint race.

So I cranked up the effort, passed both of them and was hitting 24 mph for the next few minutes. I kind of died off a little by the next right turn and they both passed me again for the last short straight away. At this point I'm thinking about T2 and the run so I was happy to just sit at 22 mph so I would be a little more coherent during T2. As I was rolling up I loosened my shoes but kept them on when I jumped off the bike.



I really need to get intimate with my new power tap. I can really see the benefit of power now as even though there wasn't much wind, it was enough to make 22-23 too easy for the longest straight away. I also would like to not be in such a bad place to start as I think I could have made up way more time on the bike than I would lose by swimming a little easier or at least more level paced.

I followed the two guys right into T2 and people were yelling all sorts of numbers. I yelled my number to a gal and she pointed me down my aisle. Once on the aisle someone else pointed me to my spot. The second guy that passed me had his bike and himself right on top of my stuff. He was yelling out over and over "225?!?!?" (my number was 226).

I just racked my bike next to his and dumped out my T2 bag. Threw my helmet down, got out of my shoes, threw my running shoes on. Grabbed my number belt and visor and took off. Somewhere during all of that the guy gave up on finding his bag and took off barefoot.

Not much. If I want to be faster here I need to practice getting out of my shoes while still on the bike and doing a running dismount. But I didn't think it was going to save me much time and had potential for disaster on my first race even if I had been practicing.

Run started out bad. The insides of my calves were slightly cramping with every step I took. About 200 yards into it, afraid that the cramping would get worse, I stopped at a stop sign and stretched them out for 10-15 seconds. When I started running again they were still doing it but at some point I guess it stopped but I don't remember exactly when.

When I stopped a girl passed me that I had passed on the bike. I was following behind her and the barefoot dude. He continued to gain ground but I kept up with the girl running about ~7:10/mile which was about what I thought I could do. I was hurting but I'm not sure if I was pushing myself as hard as I could have.

The run was basically an out and back along the same path. Right after the turnaround was the only aid station. They yelled at the girl that she was the 1st female. Well I'll be damned it that didn't motivate me to try and pass her, lol! But I could not. Both of our paces increased on the second half and we were both booking it pretty good at the end. I could not run any faster the last half mile, that's for sure.

Turns out that the girl started the swim farther in front of me than she finished the run, so I did end up beating all of the females.

Not much except practice 5k pace before hand.

Celebrating with my boys, eating breakfast tacos and drinking craft beer!


Not training specifically for sprints. Not knowing what pace I could maintain and not having experience pushing myself to the max.