Desert Triathlon - Sprint Distance - TriathlonSprint

First 50 yards was a lot of bumping and jostling for position which was expected. Couldn't see more than a foot in the murky water so it was rather hard to avoid all the contact. A couple of times it felt like guys were trying to pull me under, but I refused to sink that easily. Things opened up after that 50 and then I was on my own to swim it out.

Last year I had practiced sighting and felt like I had a good handle on things. I've been swimming a decent amount this year, but I must have forgotten to practice it and that showed in this race. I really did a bad job and definitely made the course longer by continously veering off to the left.

Not make the course longer by swimming zig-zags. Practice sighting and swim a starighter line.

I was hoping for something around 2 minutes, so a 2:55 was a bit longer than desired. Coming out of the water I had some difficulty finding the cord to unzip the wetsuit. Not sure where it was hiding but I eventually found it while running and got it unzipped and my arms out b4 reaching the bike. I suspect my biggest time waster was getting out of the suit, but it did come off fairly quickly and easily.

Got socks and bike shoes on quickly and ran out to mount line. Quickly clipped in and had the bike in lowest gear due to that short, steep hill right out of T1. Flew up it as I saw others struggling and trying to clip in or put in their already clipped in shoes.

I obviously had some inefficiencies that would be improved upon with some transition practice. In addition, I also had some minor issues with having a rental bike. One thing that comes to mind is my Garmin watch. It seemed that I fiddled around with putting it on where if I had my normal bike I would have had it premounted and ready to go.

Nice course which was flat and fast. I rented a Felt road bike for this race and wasn't sure how comfortable or fast I would be on it without any real fitting or good practice on it. After one test ride a few days before this race it did gave me some confidence it its performance and my comfort level. I at least knew I didn't dislike this particular bike and that was a big mental key for me to leading up to the race.

I am definitely happy with my performance, but also know there is room for improvement. I did feel fast and strong and that is a great thing this early in the season. Had a few swigs of water on the bike and also threw down a gel after about 30 minutes.

One thing I found funny is the amount of drafting out on the course. The race organizer really stressed immediate DQ for drafting and that there would be marshalls all over the place enforcing that policy. Interestingly, I didn't see any marshalls, but I did see several peletons with guys stacked upon each other cruising along at a nice pace.

Coming in there were some little rollers and a general uphill theme. For some reason a bunch of people were all congested, taking up the entire road and moving about 18mph. I should have passed them, but got lazy myself and stayed behind the mandatory 3 bike lengths. That was dumb bc I had plently left to surge past. The other problem without passing is that all those people arrived at the dismount line at about the same time which led to a tight and uncomfortable finish. I could have easily avoided all that.

Got to bike dismount with one foot clipped out, stopped, clipped out other foot, got off bike and ran to rack. No last minute clipping out and thus no tipping over and fracturing my elbow. That was nice.

Struggled a little bit with racking the bike, but finally got it in. Bike shoes off quickly despite having the 3 annoying velcro straps and the run shoes went on quickly thanks to the elastic laces. Threw on bib and visor and off I went after a quick gulp of water.

Practice the art of T2

The run was mostly on crushed gravel which I generally find ideal as a running surface. However, much of this stuff was in rough shape with potholes, large rocks and mounds/swells in ground. I also found it a bit odd on the back side of the lake that we needed to run around the many groups of fisherman and their large vehicles stacked up against the lake edge.

Despite that bit of wierdness, my run was pretty good. Initially it felt very labored with heavy breathing. I didn't look at my pace and just ran the early part by feel. Right out of the gate they had a water station so I threw down a quick gatorade and then worked on settling into a nice pace. It seemed like it took about 5 minutes for my HR and breathing to get under control but once it did I held a good pace throughout.

Middle of the run was pretty uneventful other than the dodging of those sharp fishing lures as they were being projected into the water. Coming into the last half mile I turned it up a gear, but nothing too crazy. Came through the finish line and the guy announced me over the speaker as Scottie Stoltmann from men-own-no-mee Falls. Got a chuckle out of all that and forgot to stop my Garmin as usual. They gave me a medal and took my chip and then a minute later I stopped the Garmin.

Stop the Garmin immediately at the finish line.

Had some water, animal crackers and a bananna. Nice to see Colleen waiting for me at the finish line and rooting me on!


The ability to swim well and a need to pick up tranisition time (mainly T1) were my main complaints in this race.


This is a good, well run event. Weather was great for this Wisconsin boy and without a doubt I would do this race again.