Health First Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Everyone and their sister told me how scary open water swimming was going to be, and frankly I managed to psych myself out. Taking everyone's advice, I kept to the back and outside rather than getting into the thick of things. My heart was pounding with excitement when I started, and I felt like I couldn't get air at first.

Then, about halfway through I was sighting, doing breast stroke to keep my head up to see, and realized I was moving faster than a lot of people doing freestyle. At this point I decided "the hell with this" and started actually swimming. It stopped being scary and I started catching up and passing people, but by then it was too late.

Frankly I should have given this my A game. I'm not a great swimmer, but even in open water I can break 2min/100yd. Now that I know what it's like, I'm not holding back again.

I intentionally took a bit more time than I needed to calm down and reflect on the swim. I was frustrated with my lack of effort coming out of the water, and decided I'd rather lose a minute grounding and centering than do something stupid on the bike. I also had problems finding things in my bag, and wound up leaving my sunglasses behind (big mistake!)

Every problem I had here comes down to not practicing T1 (or T2). I should have known my instinct where everything was in my bag, had a gel right on my seat and ready to go, had my sunglasses out, etc.

The bike segment went fast. Roads were OK, a bit rough in places, with some construction. There were supposedly rumble strips, but either I bike so regularly I didn't notice, or I managed not to hit them. I was amazed how often I got passed by a 50+ year old in a beater road bike (worse than my 15 year old Sirrus Sport!), and equally amazed to find myself passing 30somethings with bikes which probably cost more than my first car.

Ate a gel getting onto the bike, and another 2/3 through the race. Should have had more water though.

I took this way easier than I could have. This was my first triathlon, and several people told me "make sure you leave enough for the run", and without having done any bricks (I undertrained) I had no way to gauge that. The other problem was my handlebar bolt wasn't tight enough (I'd broken down the bike for the flight and reassembled in my hotel room), and wanted to keep vibration down. I could have (and should have) been keeping a 21-22mph pace, and a 90 cadence.

The other big problem I had was I forgot my sunglasses, and by the time I was back in the transition area, I had a splitting headache. It didn't slow me down -- HTFU and all that -- but it did take some of the fun out of it.

I wore my running shoes on the bike. Race day wasn't the time to learn how to use clipless pedals, so I stuck with my old toe clips (well, one toe clip, the left one was broken). The good news is it meant I didn't have to waste any time changing shoes.

More aggressive approach to the dismount area. Better choice of clothing; had I chosen a different shirt for biking I wouldn't have had to waste time taking it off before the run. Better transition bag setup. And next time I'll change shoes, obviously.

I had to alternate running and walking, especially once I got into the hill. I did horrible the first mile or so; after that, I started getting into a decent stride, and by the last mile, I was actually running the whole time, breathing good, and felt great.

I came into the run worried about an old knee injury (meniscus damage from karate) and exercise-induced asthma. Curiously enough, though, neither were an issue. My knee was just fine, which makes me think I just need to do more extensive warmups during training. As for the asthma, just a few days before the race I discovered I could prevent it if I got enough sleep and took an antihistamine.

Training, training, training! This was the part I undertrained for. Five weeks before the race I got involved in doing exterior foundation work on my house, which meant digging 10+ hours a day, and training was the last thing I wanted to do. So I lied to myself and said "don't worry, you'll have time to catch up", which of course I didn't. So going into the race, I could do 1.5mi on an indoor track before I had to break and walk.

An indoor track is absolutely NOT adequate preparation for outdoor running. It's better than a treadmill (which I was using before), but still not adequate. I should have been out there, on the road or trails, building up my endurance until I could do 4-5 miles without issue.

Drank two bottles of water, and then got a massage and some light stretching from my wife (an LMT who specializes in rehab and medical massage, and yes I know I'm a lucky man!)


#1 Lack of effort. I wasn't in it to win it, and it showed. I set my goal to finish the race, and should have set a far more aggressive goal (e.g., placing in my age group). As such, I came out with enough left over to do the race over again (albeit at a slow pace), instead of coming out puking on a palm tree. Just going by training paces, I could have shaved 12 minutes off my time.

#2 Lack of training, though frankly this comes out of #1.


This was my first race, incidentally. I went down to FL for it because I wanted to "pop my triathlon cherry", and didn't want to wait until next year. I didn't do nearly as well as I could have, but on the plus side, it was great fun, and I'm already planning for my next one.