New Brighton Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I was drafting off of somebody for a while. Due to the closure of Lifetime Plymouth for the week before the race, I got two very solid open water swims in with friends and learned how to better draft in murky lake water (follow the bubbles).

I believe the course was slightly longer than last year based on other peoples times. My rank was more or less the same, but my time was 50 seconds slower.

A solid transition with shoes on bike, not much trouble slipping into shoes. Glad I remembered to apply body glide on opening of bike shoes.

Be more agressive getting my suit legs off. I ended up sitting, which is lame.

Best pace ever for me in a race. I've managed 21.5 for a shorter time trial, but not during a triathlon. It was very interesting for me, because I identified one of my Clydesdale competitors before the race. Then I spotted and caught him on the bike. We battled back and forth for several miles, but I seemed to climb a bit better and finally got ahead of him for good climbing out of the Lake Johanna area.

My bike has improved a great deal, so just keep improving.

Nearly flawless transition. But boy were my legs cooked for the upcoming run.

I passed the 3rd place clydesdale finisher almost 1/2 way into the run. He said, "how can you run so fast, it's not fair". He was maybe the only guy I passed, but his comment still made me feel good.

I've definitely run faster than 9:09s this year, so the duel on the bike must have affected me. That and the humidity was probably a factor. My weight is still almost 10 pounds over what I consider a good running weight for me, so that's also a factor.

Stood by the finish and cheered others on. I wanted to note when other clydesdales finished to see if I was anywhere near the podium. It turns out I was.


My run was my only disappointment in this race. I wanted to do 8:30s. If I had, I would have gone sub-1:20, which would have been awesome. I'm happy nonetheless.


It's unfortunate that there are train tracks on the course and that it was not known that the train would interfere with some of the later participants.

I'm semi-miffed about the giveaways at the end. For the SCS Multisport training giveaway the number called was 383. I yelled my number 378 and another person then yelled 388. They gave it to the 388 person. Both numbers were equally close to 383 so I feel somewhat cheated. I was all Randy and not Gear West, though. I didn't say anything because after all, it's a friendly race and there's no need to get upset. I just think about how nice that professional training would be.