Kirkland Triathlon - Sprint Course - TriathlonSprint

Well.....many things....rode my bike to the race, but it was mostly downhill so that wasn't much of a warmup. The transition area was about 1/4 mile from the swim start/exit/finish line so I walked down to watch the start in my bike shoes, and then walked back after the race started--the start was about a half hour late!

I would warm up, somehow. Probably should have brought a bag with my running shoes at least. By the time it was turn to ride, I was COLD.

The mount line was at the bottom of a hill. I had geared my bike down in the transition area, but the gears slipped and my start was sooooo bad, almost walked it up the hill....really ugly.

I knew the course was hilly, but I wasn't quite expecting it to be almost all hills. Very little downhill or flat, so my speed sucked. I just wasn't warmed up enough to really push it. Big problem. I was 9th fastest woman but should have been in the top 3! I should have pre-ridden the course on Friday, as I had planned. (In my defense, something much, much more important than a triathlon came up. Yes, there are things that are more important.)

Rode my bike to the finish to watch my sister bring in the win!


Not warming up. Hills. Got up too early. Was grumpy at the race disorganization. Didn't have bike in gear to start. Didn't love the course at all.


I thought AA Sports did a poor job at this race. It looked good--lots of banners, arches, loudspeakers...all the fancy stuff. However, they had two PA's talking at the race start so you couldn't hear the race directions. Then, the race was very late to start because the wind blew the buoys away. Bad planning by the RD if you ask me. You'd think you would anchor the buoys in Lake WA....on a windy day. The run from the swim exit was uphill about 1/4 mile. I would have been furious if I'd been doing the whole tri. It was not a good exit, very poor planning. The transition and finish area were also about 1/4 mile apart. There were a couple of intersections where, despite having flaggers, I did not feel safe riding through. None of the volunteers I spoke to could answer any of my questions, easy ones. I appreciate volunteers, always, but I get frustrated when they are just standing around and can't help. The ones in the tag area for the teams were changing the rules minute by minute as far as where to stand etc. Finally, the post-race activities were delayed by so long, that I finally had to leave in order to go to a 12:15 soccer game. Mind you, the race was to start at 8 AM, and they should have done awards at 1030....but nothing, not even results posted. The food was also lame afterwards. If you are going to have athletes hanging around for 2+ hours after they race, you should feed them something decent. I was so unimpressed with the race. Rumor has it that it was the last year for it. There were a lot of empty racks there for sure. I won't miss it. It is unfortunate that they couldn't put on a great race.