Wilmington YMCA Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

i felt really, really comfortable during the swim. i followed livestrong191's awesome advice on what to use for sighting and that was a big help. found myself having to adjust my breathing pattern to stay on one side or the other due to the chop, but was okay with that. my biggest problem was the smell/taste of the diesel fuel near the end of the swim. got a big mouthful of it and that made me nauseous. my watch said 25 minutes when i got to the dock, so i was really pleased with that. wish they didn't add in the time for the run to the transition area because that was a bit of a hike!

still need to work on sighting - had to breast stroke a few times to get my bearings

still too slow on my transitions. fiddled with my garmin instead of just grabbing stuff and getting out of there.

double check that my bezel is unlocked before i start pushing buttons on my watch (or better yet, do it on the bike), practice my transitions more instead of just winging it, and spend some quality time learning to do the "flying mount" trick

almost as soon as i got both feet clipped in, the guy in front of me dropped his chain and started veering over in front of me to get out of the way of other people. fortunately i was able to get my feet out right before i did the dreaded "crash at the mount line" , which would have been bad for everyone. got clipped back in and back on my way. my first priority was breaking into my bag of sport beans to get the nasty diesel fuel taste out of my mouth. once that was taken care of, things were better. had heard horror stories about crossing the grates on the drawbridge, but didn't have any problem with that in either direction. the bike course was pretty uneventful - very flat with some bumpy sections.

pre-open my bag of sport beans because they were a pain in the keester to get out of the bag. most importantly i just need more time on the bike. i've been working on increasing distance, but i need to spend more time working at a faster speed. while i was faster than my normal effort, i still have a long way to go to get where i want to be.

not sure what happened here. just need to move faster

learn the "flying dismount" and how to get out of my shoes while riding. practice doing transitions. maybe invest in some of the elastic laces, but in the past i've never felt like i can get them tight/loose enough.

i suppose in the grand scheme of things it's a pretty pokey time, but it's five minutes faster than my last triathlon so i was very satisfied with it. in the bricks that i've done during training and in the race, my right calf feels like it's in a knot for the whole run. really need to figure out why that keeps happening because it's definitely a limiting factor - not the only one, but one of the biggies. overall though, the run was good.

figure out what's going on with my right calf. keep running more and eventually add in some speed work to make me faster

walked around some, stretched a little, had a bagel and some water


other than just needing to lose more weight and continue improving my fitness level, the only thing that limited me was my calf during the run. overall, i was much happier with my results for this tri than my last one, but it's a work in progress. this was my second tri and once again i learned a tremendous amount that i will try to apply to my next event in myrtle beach in october.


a great experience. definitely a race that i would consider doing again.