Danbury Try the Tri - TriathlonSprint

Was in the last wave, which was the first timers wave. Start was fine, lots of contact, knocked in the face, side, everything, I didn't panic, which I thought I was going to, but it did make me swim fast. I spent a lot of time mentally preparing for it, which must have helped, athletic background being football and wrestling probably didn't hurt either. All of the warnings here had me focusing on it quite a bit, which is probably the biggest reason I was ok. Around first buoy, I just put my head down and swam hard, which caused me to go about 20 yards off course. So I had to turn hard in towards the second buoy. Alternated a bit between breast and free here to sight better. I finished in the back/middle of the wave ahead of mine, which shocked me, but I think the adrenaline rush really pushed me through the swim, I can't replicate that time in the pool.

Navigate better, I'm going to focus more on trying to breath to both sides in practice, and lifting my head a bit to see forward.

I had no idea I was going so slow. I used a smaller towel, so I didn't have room to put my feet down on it, so I sprayed my feet, put them down, got them dirty, sprayed them again, etc. I also had to take a second and focus on breathing more slowly. Shoes were slow to go on, I guess. I really have no good excuse for this transition, so, so slow.

Use a bigger towel, just get my butt in gear in general.

Up and down, which wasn't a problem, passing the entire time, but never really attacked. A lot of people were riding consistently in the middle of the road, or wandering, so I was very frequently riding the brake, then waiting, and hesitating before passing. Twice I had to pass on the right as the person was almost on the yellow center lines. I was so worried about not getting too close and other things, that I just rode it and never really raced it. I left a lot more on the bike than I should have. My pr in training for 12 miles is 33:20, couldn't have replicated that on this course, which was hillier than that route, but had I hammered this course more, I could have gone much faster. In the last mile on the way up the last hill, my lace came out of it's tuck, and got wrapped around my crank. That took a while to fix, lost all my momentum, then got it untangled and sort of got it tucked into my shoe, but that sucked.

RACE! I was too worried about everything else, and I didn't attack the way I wanted to/should have. Lesson learned.

Biked in my running shoes, so no transtition there. Again had to take a second to calm down my breathing, but other than that this was much better than my first transition.

Improve overall smoothness, just need practice.

That was hard. I went out well, adrenaline kept me from really feeling the jelly legs, in the middle I started to hurt, and on the way up one long hill before the turnaround, I started to consider walking a bit. It became a very slow jog. A cramp that ran down the left side of my back that I had been dealing with since I got out of the water really started to hurt. Took a sip of water at the turnaround, splashed some on my face, sort of realized I was in a race and started to really run.

Need to work on my mental focus, after the turnaround, I woke up and ran a lot harder. But I should have kept that focus the entire time. I was content to not get passed the entire time, I should have forgotten about everyone else and focused on going as fast as I can, regardless of what anyone else was doing.

Stretching, kept moving.


Slow transitions, lack of mental focus.


No basis for comparison on post race activities, etc. The volunteers on the course were police, who were great, they kept traffic out of the intersections, pointed where to go, etc. There was only one water station except for at the transtition area, at the turnaround on the run, which I suppose was all that was needed. I won a little trophy, which was cool. I didn't think I would be adding anything to the box of trophies from high school ever again. Truth be told if I have that much fun every time and never win another thing, I'll be very happy with this sport. For my first triathlon, this worked just great. I'm definitely sticking with this.