Chain of Lakes Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

My swim time was pretty consistent with my training, but not as fast as I had hoped. The painted lane lines & Ts at the lane ends were hard to see and swimmers had some difficulty coming into the wall, myself included.

Probably go out a little faster, but in general, I just need to keep swimming more!

I had to jump out of the pool, exit the building, run across the grass and then into the transition area. I had assumed I'd be riding in long sleeves so I put my short sleeve jersey away. I was surprised to see the sun, so I had to open my bag & grab the other one - though it didn't slow me down much.

Practice these transitions!

I had a great ride and I'm very pleased with where I finished. The wind provided some challenge, but I was determined to ride it hard. Since I was in the first swim wave, there weren't a lot of riders on the course, but I knew there were at least 10 or 12 ahead of me. I just kept passing one by one, and when I came into T2, there were only 3 ahead of me! I'm VERY happy with my age group rank, and that out of 64 women in all, I was 12th on the bike. I know where my strength is!

Drink more - however, it was windy enough that I felt like I needed two hands on the bike most of the time.

It was all good...UNTIL my right calf cramped BIG TIME while I was slipping on my running shoes. I actually had to sit down and work the cramp out. I got up to run as soon as I could, but I felt it the rest of the way.

Not get a cramp? I'll still call it good, though, since I can't control the cramp.

With my leg cramped I was a bit hindered, but I was determined to run the whole thing - and I ran faster than most of my training runs! The run felt amazingly easy to me - maybe because all I could do was put one foot in front of the other and hope my leg didn't cramp again!

Not much I could do about the cramp - without it, I would definitely have put on some more speed.

I walked around a bit, stretching out my leg. It was really more of a limp since as soon as I stopped running my leg tightened up again. Had some fruit and water, showered, and chatted with other racers while we waited for results & awards.


Really, the only things that got in my way were the wind - and it didn't seem to slow me down much! - and the leg cramp.


I had a great day - it was a PR, I met my race goal, AND I met my biking goal for the season in May! I'm so pleased with my biking, but I know I need to get some speed in the swim & run. Nonetheless, I think of how far I have come since my first tri 49 weeks ago and I'm thrilled! I would do this race again.