Bristow Area Triathlon (BRATS) #2 - TriathlonSprint

An hour before race time it was an ambient 56 degrees, I was worried this was going to be a cold swim in my tri shorts. Water was surprisingly warm. My swim was and is my greatest weak spot due to lack of practice at the time of this race. Frankly doing the 300m without taking any breaks surprised me. Only one guy passed me and I paced him for the most part after I let him pass at the wall. Overall I felt pretty good about my performance.

I need more practice, plain and simple. Not sure where I want to be in terms of swim time... but faster for farther.

My first every transition... never even practiced one. Had to run out of the pool across a drive and into transition. Honestly I was pretty excited having made it through the swim... Getting my tri top on was a bit dicey. Otherwise tossed cap/goggles, slipped on shoes, glasses, helmet... grab bike and go.

I thought I did pretty well, but there are some areas I can clean up. This whole race was a real learning experience.

Decent bike ride, didn't really get my bike legs going until somewhere in the second loop.

Up the pace next time, I had plenty of gas left.

Came in an felt nauseous from a gel I had eaten a few miles before coming in. That was the biggest mistake of my race. Otherwise a slow transition, putting on socks and tying laces didn't help speed things up.

Not take that accursed gel.

My race unraveled in the last few miles of the bike ride... I thought I'd toss in a gel to get me all amped up for the run... wrong! That Clif Shot Mocha had me to the point of feeling like I was going to vomit until mile 2 of the run. After that it was sort of stomach cramp, but I was able to finish stronger than I had been running. Otherwise a very poor run considering I run in the 6:30 to 7:00 range when training.

That gel coming in from the bike was the only bad thing on the whole day of my first ever triathlon. Unfortunate, but I'll learn from it. Truth be told, I didn't need it... a little bit of water in T2 would have been enough.

I wasn't really tired, crampy or anything. Felt fine except for my stomach issue. Wife and daughter helped me locate a bottle water and a banana that I slowly ate while sitting down for around 15 minutes.


Overall lack of experience of not know how much to push in the early part of the race and then a nutrition error on my part with a gel that made me feel ill.


Enjoyed it, may do their fall race (@ another site) and would like to do this one next year.