Carmel Sprint Triathlon (formerly Splash, Flash & Dash) - TriathlonSprint

seeded WAY to fast. guestimated 1:30/100m, realized after the fact been swimming in a marked YARD pool. I knew I was in trouble while in line and the guy next to me said he would be doing the swim in 5-6 minutes.

I did okay. I finished and I think I PR'd even though it was a shoddy performance to say the least.

need much much much more swim time. I can move, but I have poor forward motion skills, and I ran into some breathing issues again this year- shortness of breath again and that carried over to the bike portion.

dizzy hitting cold air from hot pool. longer run to transition than it was the last time I did it (2008). Had a difficult time getting thoughts in order, and gravel off feet to get into socks.

weather was a big factor.
still need to look into better bike shoes and running shoes and try to go sock less.

Very Cold!!
hands froze. had to stop at about 8 miles to make hands work.
Just because I have a fast Tri-bike, doesn't make the course go any faster if I don't have the engine to do it with!
Hills - bad.
anything not downhill - bad.
Went faster my 1st year on a borrowed mountain bike! GRR!

Gee, maybe wear sleeves or a jacket and Gloves?
actually spend some time riding the bike instead of looking at it thinking about riding it.

Could have done so much better with a little more practice.

had to sit down to get shoes off/on. luckily I didn't stay down very long.
there is no jumping off a moving bike in bike shoes for me. Took a tumble a couple years ago when I tried that.. something about wet plastic on asphalt making shoes go in directions that legs don't normally go. X

still need to look into better bike shoes and running shoes and try to go sock less.

50yd in had to stop and stretch calves (typical after bike for me), really slow going and walked probably 1/4mi. 12 min 1st mile. Legs started to loosen up and ran all but 50yds of mile 2 @ 10min. Last mile started good and felt great at the half-way point, pushed it hard and finished in 9 mins, a pr for me. PR 5k time

drink some water on bike. didn't drink anything this time until on the run course and that slows me down 10-25 seconds each time. I proved I have the potential for a 27 min 5k.. now I have to do it.

water, banana, cookies, more water, another cookie. walk back to transition and stretch everything out. came home and slept for 4 hours.


lack of training, overconfidence in my abilities, underestimated the weather conditions.


I've never wanted to quit a race before today.. the frozen hands on the bike damn near did it. Mentally I was frustrated and over it at that point. However, I'm glad I kept going.

Not the comeback that I had originally thought it was going to be, and certainly not the way I wanted to start my season, but I finished BOP like I had expected and not DFL.

It's been cold and blustery 2 out of the 3 times I have done this event.
I don't know if I'm going to do it again next year.