Black Bear Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Not a good swim... but not a terrible one considering I have all the swimming skills of a snail in a straitjacket. Almost every time I put my face in the water I got water RIGHT UP my nose. Really frustrating, I couldn't get into a good rhythm at all. Plus my goggles were fogging up terribly and I kept having to fuss with them. The water was very nice and clear and warm though! And unlike the murky lake in which I've been practicing, you could see other swimmers from at least 5 ft away.

Learn to swim like 20 years ago.

Need to learn to get into a rhythm sooner rather than later- getting into the water before the race might have helped with that. Lesson learned!!

Obviously my T1 could use some improvement :) This was my first triathlon so I tried to relax about it and just be glad to be done with the swim. The timing chips were huge as hell and it did take a little work to get the wetsuit down and off the thing.

Dry my feet off better- I tried to be quick about it but that resulted in them not being as dry as I would've liked and my socks not going on so easily.

I had tons and tons of fun on the bike. I felt like I made up for some of my sucky swim and T1 times. I had a blast on the hills- I was scared of them when I signed up for this race so I've practiced on big hills for a couple of months. It paid off! I was passing a lot of people, which was weird to me since I am usually the one getting passed. Since it was just an 11 mile ride I made sure to really push myself.

Use my biiiiig gear. The last couple of practice rides it made some weird clunky noises when I switched into it and I'm paranoid of dropping my chain- so in the race I opted not to use it. Plus since I'm new to this, my legs just aren't that strong yet and I wasn't sure how much that huge gear would take out of them before the run.

Switched shoes, put on race belt. Was going to grab a drink but remembered them saying there would be plenty of water on the run course (and there was!!).

I could've saved time by putting on my belt as I ran out of transition rather than as I was sitting putting on my shoes- but I was afraid of forgetting it so as soon as I saw it I put it on.
Since this was my first race I wanted to be really sure I didn't forget anything, so before taking off, I turned and did a quick once-over of my transition area. Probably didn't need to do that!

The run felt SO much longer than 3.1! Probably because going out was mostly uphill. I was feeling really discouraged because #1 I was getting passed constantly!! #2 I was having a hard time breathing from the beginning, but didn't want to push TOO hard and have nothing left for the end. Unlike the bike course, I had not done the run course prior to the race so had NO idea what to expect.

Overall though, I'm pretty happy with my run since I've done a couple of 5k's this year and this is my normal pace. I thought adding the swimming & biking would've made me a lot slower than this.

Run the course before the race so I know what to expect.
Work more on my speed!

I did plenty of bricks before the race but was surprised at how tired I felt running.

Had some water, watched the last TNTers finish their race, then chowed down at the TNT picnic tent :)


Experience!! And not being athletic at all for the first 30 years of my life :)


I'd highly recommend this race to anyone- it was well organized and a LOT of fun!!

It must have been a lot of mental effort on my part-- that could be just because this was my first race. I realized on the way home that not even once during the bike ride or the run, did I look around and enjoy the scenery! I was sort of sad about that.