Bath County Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

We were the 3rd wave - pink caps. We took off, I stayed wide right and I had a much better swim than SML - no crowding. I was swimming right next to this woman for a while, getting a good draft off of her, until she started pushing me away from the buoy and into the middle of the lake, so I went to her left and did my own swim. Caught up to some blue caps pretty quickly. The swim seemed to take forever. At one point a woman in the relay/novice group motered by me like a speed boat. She ended up doing the swim in 11 mins! Wow! But she was on the winning relay team, and obviously a swimmer. At one point I started thinking about the other legs and started to get nervous again, which messed with my breathing, but I swam free the whole way, sighted pretty straight, and had a good swim.

Focus on the swim, and not think about the other parts of the race.

I was pretty dizzy in T1 - had to hold onto the rack to get my shoes on. I still put my shoes on in T1, which slows my T1 times down, but i think I'd wreck if I tried to do a flying mount. Best T1 time with a wetsuit ever.

The bike started with a little hill out of transition, and then a BIG hill. I passed a few people on that one. I was told not to hit it too hard - I don't think I did, but everyone else was crawling. So I just went. Then zoomed down the other side. The first 6 miles is a steady 2-3% incline, which you can't tell until you turn around. I stayed in my big ring as much as I could, stood up to get up little steeper hills and give my butt a break, and just tried to stay aero as much as I could. I got passed by a few women on bikes with race wheels, but mostly I passed some guys. I was nervous about the turnaround, but when I saw a woman who just passed me wreck on the turn, I just unclipped and took it easy. Then - ZOOM down to the big hill. I passed a woman on the last hill who had passed me earlier, and she didn't catch me. In transition she told me I was a great hill rider. Nice! 41:23 14th out of 88. Slower than my SML time, which was disappointing because I thought I'd do better on the tri bike with a downhill second half. Oh well. I do think my legs hadn't completely recovered from the varmint though because they were still sore on Friday.

Hit it harder? I don't know what I was saving myself for.

In T2 I took of my shoes, slipped on my running shoes, grabbed my hat and race number, and ran out. Fastest T2 ever.

The run started up a little hill out of transition, and then a HUGE hill - which didn't seem that big on our warmup, but I was really feeling like I wanted to walk. But, there were two women ahead of me that had passed me on the bike, so I had to catch them. And I did. On the big hill. And they didn't catch me again. I did get passed at the turnaround, but I passed about 5 or 6 more women. It was a tough run - quite hilly and it felt pretty hot. And i kept thinking, 'why the hell do I do this? this sucks. I hate sprints." And then it was over and I was done.

eliminate the negative thoughts

Packed up our gear, jumped in the lake to de-salt, and ate the post-race BBQ.


The PR in a hilly half marathon the weekend before? My legs just didn't feel like they had any speed in them. Also need to get rid of those negative thoughts - I'll need to be more positive next weekend.


great race, beautiful location, and most importantly - CLOSED TO CAR TRAFFIC! Gotta love that! First race on the pink panther courtesy of katimomma. Her speed rubbed off on me - first age group win!!