Tri The Illini - Fighting Illini Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I went out a bit too fast and immediately caught up to, and passed, the person in front of me. I then ran into a second person and was unable to pass her until about the 200m mark. I ended up passing four people and was passed once while waiting for the person in front of me to get off the wall at a turn.

I need to pace myself a bit more- first-time jitters got the better of me on my first 100 and I was breathing on every stroke for the last 100.

Took me a while- probably b-c it was my first time doing a transition.

Practice a couple of times and perhaps try and clip my shoes into my bike. It took me about 20 seconds to get my left foot to clip in.

My cadence was all over the place- from high 80s to 110. I tried to keep the cadence at about 95, but I would spin higher in lower gears going into the wind. Without realizing it, I'd be way up there (105+)...need to work on that.

I definitely felt it at the end of the bike- cycling is my weakness for sure. I do not have the stamina on the bike that I have in the pool and on the run. The strange thing is I really thought I went faster than I did- at the end of the race I claimed I 'crushed' the bike whereas the run might have been slow. In reality it was rather the opposite.

I need to train more so that I can develop a constant pedal stroke. Also, some aero bars might be a good investment- I wouldn't want to do a longer ride tucked into the drops the whole time.

My bike fell off the rack and I had trouble getting it to stay on.

Practice transitions. Also, I was really gassed in this transition and took a few moments to catch my breath

I felt pretty gassed coming off the bike and my breathing was really red lining as I started to run. I had to back off and slow down a bit to recover my breathing...was starting to get a bit goofy and out of control.

Once I settled that down it was OK, although I was pushing myself pretty good. There's quite a bit of room for improvement in terms of my cardio fitness.

Couldn't muster up a kick at the finish...just ground it out.



Bring a water bottle into the transition area and sip prior to the run.

Train a lot more!!!!

Walked around a bit and got stretched at the massage tent.


Lack of training- plain and simple.


I will definitely be back again next year. While this was my first triathlon and I don't have anything to compare the race to, it struck me as being a rather well organized affair (especially considering it's run by a group of unpaid college kids).