Athens YMCA Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

This was horrible. I came in with really good expectations for the swim. I couldn't find a pace, and the pool I have been training in is apparently a little (or maybe alot) shorter than 25 meters. I gave a time of 5:30, which is what I thought I had been swimming 300 meters in. This put me at entering the water at 105, with some solid swimmers behind me. I was really distracted by people swimming in the same lane with me. And I got hit in the head by an oncoming swimmer, mostly my fault because I was veering right. This caused me to swallow a good deal of water, which really hurt my breathing from that point on. I let about 5 people pass overall, and just never found any rhythm.

Train on a more technical swimming stroke. And implement it. I was too excited and pretty much threw all the things I had been working on out the window. This led to me just trying to swim fast rather than swim right. But now I know where I really need to focus. On the good side, it couln't possibly get much worse than this.

I was really down about my performance in the swim, and unfocused by this point. This is the one part of the race where I wish I could go back and give more effort. I didn't make any attempt to hurry to my bike, which I am really pissed off about. There's no reason at all why this transition should take more than 2 minutes.

More effort. Don't let a poor performance in the swim affect your mentality so much.

I felt good on the bike. My magnet for my cadence slid so that I had no cadence for a large portion of the race. But I've managed to learn a cadence of around 90, and I'm pretty sure I maintained it. I was extremely intimidated by everybody's bikes. They were so flashy, and looked so damn expensive. I'm thinking that I'll ride my bike through this year, and get something SEXY like I was seeing there! Enough about other people's bikes. I raced good on the bike I thought. Fought the hills strong. Going downhill into the turnaround was great. Focused on dipping my shoulders to get more aerodynamic, and maxed out at 36 mph. What a feeling to be going that fast on a bike! Of course this was before the turnaround. So going back up that bastard was tough. Slowed down all the way to 11 mph. Had to drop into middle gear (I'm sure there's some biking term for this, but I'm cycling illiterate as of right now). But kept solid the entire time. Stayed in my drops the entire race, which was new. I usually don't ride in them all the time. Bike had trouble shifting between middle gears on the back, but that was my only problem.

Tie my cadence magnet so that it stays on. Other than that, just train harder.

I'm a little disappointed with this transition as well, because I don't have cycling shoes, so I bike/run in both. So I should've gotten a little better time here. All I had to do was take off my helmet and gloves, and put on my tri-top. Oh, I remember now. I wore an under armour type long sleeve shirt for the bike, because I thought it might be cold. I tried to take this off, but it was too sweaty. I tried twice, and eventually gave up. Probably wasted about 10 seconds doing this.

Don't wear the under shirt. It wasn't necessary.

Wow!!! Man, did I feel good during the run. I had dead legs, but they went away fast. Maybe a quarter mile in. Really focused on taking good lengthy strides and maintaing a solid pace. There might have been mile markers along the way, but I never noticed them. I did see the three mile marker and picked it up into whatever gear I had left. But then we had to make an abrupt right turn, which really confused me, because we finished on grass. I wasn't expecting this, and I hate running on grass. Otherwise, I think I could have shaved maybe 5 more seconds.

Pay more attention to the course layout. Kick in to finish strong with around 3/8 a mile left rather than the last 1/8 of a mile. I had more juice left in me when I finished.

Brisk walking, followed by light stretching. Hogged down a baked potato.


Poor technique in the swim. Lack of effort in the transitions, I'm so embarassed to use the term "lack of effort". Maybe lack of enthusiasm would be more applicable.


I'm so excited to be able to say I am now a TRIATHLETE! I can't even begin to express how excited I am about this race. One month ago, my goal was just to finish. Last week, I knew I would finish, and set a goal of 1:35:00. I absolutely smashed my goal. I can't wait for the next race, although my body is telling me to wait right now. Swim was rough, bike was above average, run was great. I still can't believe how fast I was running. Maybe they had a mistake with their timers :) Race was delayed due to fog. Can't complain about weather, since we have no control. Good race for a small town effort.