Patriot Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I suffered from using my reverse-tri time from Jay Benson (~11:00) as my seed time for this race. I knew I could swim a faster 400, but I figured it would be easy to pass folks as-needed. Instead, I got stuck behind a number of slower folks and the small lane area made it difficult to pass. I wasn't the only faster swimmer stuck behind people -- it seemed like I was constantly in a pack of 4-8 swimmers. I had a hard time breathing starting after the first 25, when I got into some traffic, and the erratic rhythm of slower swimmers and faster swimmers just exasterbated the problem. I ended up side-stroking most of the way because I was freaked out and just couldn't breathe.

I definitely need more practice swimming in crowds so I don't get so freaked out in traffic. I also should have entered the pool with a slightly faster crowd -- maybe the 9:30 folks instead of the 11:00.

My first swim-to-bike transition. Swimcap and goggles off -> socks and shoes on -> sunglasses/racing belt on -> helmet on -> gloves on -> camelbak on -> go. I felt like I was moving pretty slowly. I put my socks on without drying off my feet, so I was fumbling around there for longer than I should have.

I could probably go without gloves and camelbak. Maybe bike without socks? At least dry off feet before putting socks on.

Camelbak was not functioning during the ride, so that was a complete bust. I'm not sure what exactly went wrong there. I didn't have any other water on my bike, so I was pretty dry coming into T2. Starting less than half way through the bike, my toes started going numb. I had to move them around during downhills to get the blood flowing again. This hasn't happened to me before -- I think it's primarily from my wet socks. My socks were wet and I don't think my biking shoes are very well vented because they were still wet when I got off the bike. Otherwise, I'm pretty satisfied with the ride.

Choose a different pair of socks -- these were pretty thick socks -- or try not wearing socks at all.

Rack bike -> helmet/shoes/gloves off -> running shoes on -> hat on -> a long drink of water (luckily I had a bottle here) -> go. There was another AGer who (I assume) had finished sitting in front of my bike, so I went around to the other side of my area to transition, but that made it more difficult for me because I had set up all my stuff toward the other side.

I should have politely kicked out the other girl and gone to the side that I had planned.

The start of this run was brutal! The climb, combined with the lactic acid burn in my legs from the bike, resulted in a very slow first 1.5 miles or so. I stopped for some gatorade at the aid station about half-way through.

I probably could have kicked it up during the last half of the run, but I was trying to take it easy this race. Could always use more hillwork...

lots of water, a banana, orange, and cookie...


I should really work on my transitions: my individual event rankings within my AG were all better than my overall AG ranking. If I had just shaved 35s off my combined transition time, my overall ranking would have moved up one place.


I thought this was a good, challenging race and the volunteers did a great job. Everything seemed to run smoothly.