MotorCity Triathlon - Sprint Distance - TriathlonSprint

Swim was a touch more than I was anticipating. It is in the Detroit River and we veered right to start. Not too bad, but I noticed as I was turning the first buoy that when I took two strokes to get by the buoy, or so I thought, that I was under the buoy hitting the rope. Hmmm.. ok, was it me or the current? They said there was a "slight" current so.. ok, keep swimming.. Kept swimming, though seemed to be off course, so I stop to figure out where I am since I had long left the group behind me, and all I hear are screams, whistles and see people hanging onto every board in site and others lifeguards basically asking of some people can wait a minute or not. Oh boy... its the current that sent me into the buoy and people are probably freaking a little. I remember that I have a couple of newer teammates out there with me so I flip on my back and look around trying to see if any people yelling for help in the water are them since it was clear they werent getting to people fast enough. Unfortunately I couldnt see well, so I just had to keep swimming. Make the turn to head in, alright here we go! Nope, Im swimming swimming and I go to sight and all I see is the buoy I just turned about 20 meters away from me. Grrr, the current. So I head in sideways all over the place but make it out fine. Others were not so lucky and one of them was a teammate but I'll spare the details on that.

Were in the Detroit river, fine, there is current. A little heads up that its a bit more than a "slight" current and explaining to people how to handle it for 700+ athletes would have been nice though. Im a strong swimmer I have no problem with it, but when you draw that big of a race, you know most are not going to be. There I said my piece :) I did hear that the later waves they did start announcing about the current because they saw us ladies scattered everywhere trying to come back in. But only the last couple mens group got that speach

pretty quick after the run in. Found my bike fast and helmet and sunglasses on, then off I went

BIke was good. Felt good and smooth. Should have pushed a bit more because I know I had more. I borrowed a friends Zipps with a disc and wasnt too sure how my normal fast pace would look on them and didnt want to completely blow up on the bike since my run has been feeling not so hot lately in the first place.

held 20.99mph, easily could have bumped to probably 21.5 or 22 I would say with how my legs felt. Normally they feel a bit more muscle tight coming off the bike when I give my all and I didnt have any twinges. So, lesson learned since I'll be borrowing those wheels again or getting my own eventually ;)

Good and quick again

Run was alllllllllll over the place for me. Seemed I was either down at 7-7:15 or 8-8:20. Why? I dont know :) Ive been doing more speedwork lately with much more stop/start so I think Ive lost a little bit of pacing that tempo runs last year were providing me. Maybe I'll throw some of those back in soon.

My garmin has me at 3.4 miles at 7:50 pace but the race results have it at 3.3 miles for a 8:01 pace. The race is advertised at 3.4 miles for the sprint. My garmin agreed with that.... why they always are a little off in the results is beyond me. 3d seems to be famous for it, still.

Little goof here to :) Coming into the finish, sprint goes straight and olympic turn to go back out. I had two guys in front of me that I was pacing behind and they turned, so I turned. MMM, they were olympic :) Luckily Ron saw me do this and came sprinting over to yell at me that I was supposed to go straight!! So I had to turn around and figure out where I was supposed to continue on at. Probably only cost me 20 seconds, but still, bummer! No one was there guiding and no one was lined up for the finish yet since I was one of the first in. So I was just following the line, unfortunately the line was for oly. I saw many many others do this as more came in though, so I wasnt the only one!

I was satisfied with this race. Still going to work on the run a bit and the weight coming off that will help. Im top 3-5 on the bike and swim consistently in all the races so far this year, my run is just a little bit lower, but not too bad. Just goes to show that being consistent in all events can go a long way in the final results and staying top 3 overall!