Mission man triathlon - TriathlonSprint

The swim as I've said before was like being in a washing machine, this was my first open water swim with ~90 people in the water at the same time. Got kicked in the chest TWICE, grabbed, had someone try to swim over me. Coming back towards T1 noticed a 20 something young man literally sit upright in the water gasping for breath and on the verge of panic. At this point I sat up with him and talked him towards the beach (once a lifegaurd...) This cost me at least a minute on the swim but was time well spent.

I tried to get to the inside of the mass to avoid the scrum and get a good line on the first bouy. This would have worked if I was much faster or much slower as everyone moved left. Perhaps I would have started on the right side. Don't know...first mass swim, first open water swim, first Triathlon.

I just rode in my Tri-shorts, T1 was not the longest, not the shortest, it was controlled and methodical as I've practiced. Actually a lot easier than I thought.

Sprinted into T1 instead of walking quickly.

Didn't push it on the bike. Rode the cadence I train at, but spent a WHOLE lot of time in the big ring. About mile 9 my right calf started to cramp up on me. At this point I started doing single leg drills to save it for the upcoming run.

Stretch out more on the bike. Dial in the fit issue.

T2 was like T1 just a little longer, I shot a hammer-gel and took a long swig of water, tried to keep my wits about me.

No opening bottle of water, throw my stuff down and go.

The run in my weakness. Combine that with my knee/calf pain I had to hobble a couple of times. Still not bad considering I've run 3 5K's in my life, the first was a 30:15, the second 26.17 and the third was during a triathlon

Train more on the run.

ate some food, talked with the fam.


Definately the knee/calf pain


Again, this was my first triathlon, so it was by far the best. It was not as hard as I thought it would be, really the only place I suffered was on the run. I was careful to take the experience for what it was and not focus on performance. This race was to gain experience under real life circumstances for mass Open water swims and transitions under the clock in preparation for my big race (Pinehurst, Oct 1 - Oly). I have a super sprint and perhaps another sprint between now and Oct.

Running Mission Man was one of the best decisions I've ever made.