Tri the Creek Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

My first open water swim. I really should have practiced open water swimming beforehand. I guess others aren't great at it either, since I got 16/24. Even though it seemed like my swimming was really bad, I'm pretty happy with it for my first open water swim.

Practice open water swimming. Practice swimming with a wetsuit. Learn to breath on both sides. Swim straighter.

Did much better than my first tri last month, even with the addition of wetsuit removal. Probably should learn go sockless.

Practice with the wetsuit. I did a test run Friday night, but I didn't do it that smoothly.

I felt like I was really pushing it, but only got 17/24 in my age group. Compared to the swim where I felt like I was very slow, here I felt I was very fast. Guess everyone was fast on the bike.

Work on riding hard up hills.

Happy with T2.

I need to figure out how to deal with my Garmin 305 and transitioning it from bike to run. I suppose learning to get out of my shoes while on the bike might help slightly instead of clipping out.

The course was mis-measured and was only 2.6 miles. I wasn't sure if it was just the mileage marker at the 2 mile point that was wrong or if I could push it brecause we only had just over half a mile left at that point. I kept running too fast and having to force myself to slow down to keep from blowing up. Really ran on the edge of my ability and running at a below 10 minute mile pace is awesome for me.

Maybe wear a hat. The sun was pretty tough by the time we got to the run, especially the "out" portion since it was directly into the sun for much of it.

Walked around, stretched a little, ate some pizza, drank some beer.


Open water swimming and just general fitness level both have plenty of room for improvement.


They lose big points on organization because of mis-measuring really both the run & bike courses. The bike was advertised as 13 miles, but garmin said 12.53, and the run was only 2.6 instead of 5k. The first mile marker was exactly right, but the 2nd mile marker was only .6 miles later. If I had known for sure that the course was only 2.6 I might have pushed a little harder, but I really didn't have much more to give. Then again, the guy in 17th beat me by 1.2 seconds and I probably could have passed him.

Overall, I'm exceedingly happy with my performance. I have never pushed myself that hard in an athletic event. It was gratifying to not only not finish dead last in my age group, but to beat several people.