Celebration Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Swim went well. Finished 3rd in my wave and 26th overall. Wish they had spread the waves out a little farther - had to weave through the two waves in front of me for the whole back half of the course. Was surprised at how slow my time was though - looking at the top times compared to last year's Iron Girl I wouldn't be surprised if this year's course was marked a bit long.

Long run from the water to T1. No idea how the leaders did the whole transition in ~1 minute - it took me longer than that just to run to my bike!

Was kind of cool to see everyone's bikes still there from my wave. Oh well, knew the swim would be my strongest leg and then downhill from there.

Was shocked at how many people I passed on the bike. Was only passed by about 3 or 4 (all hardcore people in aero-tribikes) but I must have passed close to 100 people from the waves in front of me. Big confidence-builder, and it probably pushed me to go even faster. Was very happy with the time - in practice runs I had topped out at around 17.7 mph. Although maybe this means I went to hard - would have been nice to have more for the run.

Steep hill down to T2 was hard to keep my legs steady after the bike.

Looking at results, I was in about 90th place coming into T2. Not bad.

Blech. Here is where the race turned from great to not-so-great. I just didn't have it on the run today. Was barely 200 yards in when my legs just decided they didn't really want to run today. Had to walk up all the really steep hills, plus had to walk a couple other times because I was just spent. I knew the run would suck for me, but had hoped I could just push through for 3.4 miles. The heat really didn't help - was up to about 95 at this point. At about mile 2 I started having really bad pain in the balls of my feet; no idea why.

Overall, I'd have to say I was happy, considering it was my first tri ever. Was disappointed the run set me back so far, but at least I know what I have to work on.