Plattsmouth Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I had always swam with just my trunks on and no shirt. I did this swim with my Tri top and from the very start I felt like my breathing was really restricted. I don't know if it was the sensation of having a shirt on or just nerves that caused me problems but I was out of breath after just one lap and sucking wind the whole time. I lost a good 30-40 seconds on my swim by being out of breath. I felt horrible when I got out of the water and had a tough time catching my breath running into T1

either not wear my tri top or do some practice swims with it on.

Going into T1 I was horribly out of breath from my swim and ran somewhat slowly to my bike. I got my helmet and glasses on quickly and ran up to the mounting line. It was a good 100y run up a fairly steep hill so I didn't run it that fast due to my breathing issues.
My shoes were clipped to my pedals and getting on the bike was fairly smooth, I just put one foot on top of the left shoe and started. I didn't get fully up to speed before I tried slipping my shoes on so I lost a lot of time trying to get my feet into the shoes. Plus I had never practiced slipping my feet into the shoes while riding with wet feet, so that was a new challenge that wasn't easy.
also forgot to hit the transition buttons on my watch, so i didn't record my T time.

practice mounting more and putting shoes on with wet feet.

The first mile going out was a steep hill with a real sharp turn to the right at the bottom of the hill. So I had to go from 38mph down to 10 in a short distance to make that turn. OK, i didn't have to, but I tried to hold as much speed as I could. My rear tire did slip out a little bit as I was braking but it was a non issue.

after the first steep hill I was able to hold really good speed on the straightaways and downhills but I wasn't going very fast up the hills. This is my first tri and I just got my bike a month ago so I'm learning as I go. The first several hills I was down close to 10mph, which killed my average speed. after about 5 miles a very fast rider blew by me going up one of the hills and I noticed he was standing up and pushing it hard going up the hill so I figured what the heck and did the same. My speed went from 10 up to 15-18 going up the rest of the hills. booyaa I learned something. :)
coming back was more of the same with the last mile being a very steep hill heading back to transition. This got the HR up very high and made transition a little tougher.
I brought one bottle with gatorade in it but when I took a drink or two it just didn't taste good. I was wishing I had water versus the gator.
I still had a difficult time breathing through the entire bike ride. It seemed like I was horribly out of breath and my HR was spiking pretty high to the 170s. I don't know if this was still the nerves from the pool or if it was the tight Tri top constricting things.

learn how to go up hills better

pulled my feet out easily from my shoes and swung my leg over to be on one side of the bike without issue. I came to a complete stop and jumped off versus doing a running stop, but it didn't add much time.
running my bike back to the bike rack was challenging because the paved road was very rough on my feet and there was a steep hill going down to transition. i initially grabbed my seat and ran down the hill but the bike started pulling me faster than I could run barefoot so I had to pull it back and use the brake on the bile a little to slow down my run.
Racking the bike was without incident and I decided to ditch the tri-top and put on a regular running T-shirt. this probably cost me 5-10 seconds but it was worth it.
I ordered some Zoot's but they're not here yet so I had to put on my socks and tie my shoes which slowed my T2 down a lot (plus the shirt).

order zoots overnight... lol, ok not really

I started the run feeling very fresh and strong. I wondered if I should have pushed the bike harder, but oh well.
after a short uphill to get out of transition there's about 1/2 a mile that's fairly flat and I was holding a 6:45 pace through that. Finally my breathing was under control, so either the nerves wore off, or it was my tri top constricting things. (personally i think it was in my head)
at about the 1/2 mile mark I hit a horrible down hill that was about a 100 ft. drop (according to my gps watch) over less than a half mile. I have a tendency to over stride on downhills and hurt my knees/feet, so I kept my strides short and my head down. I was able to hold a 5:15 or so pace going down and felt great with no foot/knee pain at all. there was then a series of roller coaster hills with very steep inclines/declines. They had a water stop at the top of the steepest hill, but I grabbed a water and was so out of breath I couldn't drink it. i just put some water in my mouth and spit it out and continued on. I skipped the water again on the way back because i wasn't really thirsty.
at the end my legs were still very fresh and didn't even feel like I had pushed hard. My cardio was redlined most of the way, but that is my limiting factor, not my legs.


run faster. :)
I wanted to hold a 7:00/mile pace overall, but ended up with a 8:13 which I felt was very good considering the mountains I had to run up. :)

grabbed a water and orange and did some stretching


BREATHING. it killed my swim and didn't help on my bike. Not sure if it's just an experience thing or if it's my tri top.


I thought it was a good race. It was small with 120 participants. There were a couple places on the run that I wasn't 100% sure which way to go, but i just kept running straight and it worked out. so there were maybe a couple places a volunteer or two would have helped.
My wife did a little video as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0C7L9nZ4Ls