SBR Harriman Sprint Triathlon #4 - TriathlonSprint

I suck at swimming so I was looking to just do the best I could and not be last out of the water. :-) I have been practicing with a coach a bit and this was my first race since doing so. I didn't do as badly as I would have otherwise and I only had to swim breast stroke from about 200 yds out to just past the buoy. I had taken the far left position on the beach, away from the fish, but when the starting horn sounded most of the field seemed to hesitate and not run into the water as fast as possible, which I did, and then porpoised a few times and it seemed like I was more in front than I wanted to be at this point!

A few of the women, whose wave began 4 minutes after mine, swam past me towards the end.

SWIM MORE! Keep training with my coach who is helping me a lot.

Didn't start taking off my wetsuit until I was almost into the transiton area; I could have started a bit sooner and saved a few seconds, but the suit came off easily and I strapped on the Garmin, and helmet and ran with the bike towards the exit.

Hesitate even less, get more of suit off on the way up from the beach.

It had been raining up until the time of the swim start and the pavement was still quite wet. I took it very conservatively around the turns. I was fast on the flats and downhills and passed a few people. I got passed by several people on the big uphill.

I forgot to start the Garmin at the beginning of the bike leg, so I don't have an accurate (even for Garmin) distance measurement.

There was one downhill where a guy forced me out onto the yellow line despite my shouting:On your left." It was scary slippery there and I got into a wobble for a few seconds at high speed; luckily I recovered and no cars were coming.

After the race I saw that several people had gone down, not surprising; luckily no big injuries!

Keep training! I'm getting better. :-)

I unstrapped my shoes and got my feet out a bit late and then cut my left foot on something getting off the bike. Hesitated a few seconds while I reset Garmin to run.

Get out of the shoes a bit earlier and be careful not to catch my foot on anything. Set Garmin to "run" as soon as I get off the bike while running to the rack.

A good part of the course was out and back so you got to see your competitors.

Do speed and pace training sessions.

Ate a bannana and drank a Gatorade.


I had a lot of fun at this race. The people were friendly, the course was beautiful, especially the bike, and I won a nice backpack! (a race # raffle) The organizers did a great job, with the one exception of mistakenly classifying the women's winner as a man! (Poor girl; they did clear it up.)

I would definitely do this race again. They have added a fifth race to the series, but it falls on the same day, September 29th, as the Montauk Half, which I'm doing this year.