Grand Rapids Triathlon - Sprint Course - TriathlonSprint

Started slow. No warm up. Had slight anxiety breathing did breast for a couple of strokes and then got my groove on. By the time I rounded the bouy's I was passing swimmers left and right. Sprinted the final 200. Got a rythym of sighting on every breath.

Warm up and sleep. Hard to a warm up here. Pace myself to be ready for T1.

Terrible. I don't know what happened. I can't remember other then I was dizzy coming out of the swim and tumbled into some bushes and got up and ran painfully barefoot to my bike. It was way too long. I'm really at a loss as to what happened in my first ever T1. Was dizzy when I came out of water. I do remember volunteers asking if I was OK.

Pace myself a little at the end of the swim. Get some sleep.

After the disaster of T1 the bike went much better then expected. I rode full out sprint the whole way and mostly passed riders. I love my new bike. Giant Advanced Defy 2. Light, Comfortable and fast. Bike computer stopped working so I had no idea how fast I was going.

More training. Only trained for a couple months and just 2 weeks on new bike. Not rece with Aero Bars for Sprint. I could have gone even faster without them.

This went much better then T1. I was focused and ready and didn't mess around. Had a slight problem when entering trans area. My pedal snagged someone's bag and as I looked down to see what was holding me back I said, "oh crap", but then the rider behind me said he's got it and took it off my pedal...and flung it back to where it belonged! We couldn't help but laugh.

Watch where my bike is going but that is hard because your also watching our for bikers coming through trans on the way to bike.

Never did a brick bike to run. Never occured to me to do one. Running after biking full out was tough. I was slow to start and legs felt like noodles. On top of that I was just 8 weeks out from a stress fracture so I didn't have the training miles under me. But overall did OK. No walking and actually passed runners on this nice course. Temp got very hot during run.

Not get a stress fracture 8 weeks before the race...which came back after the Tri. Be able to train more and reduce my times. Also, possibly pace myself on the bike for the run. Being my first Tri and just went full bore on everything.

Oranges, water and Mountain Dew Slurpee at Speedway down the road.


Not able to train for the run due to stress fracture of heal bone. No open water swim prior to race.


My first Tri and I thought it was very well run. The entire community seemed to be behind it. I loved the atmosphere and the overall politeness of the other athlete's. It seems like the race is not an indivudal event but a human event. Everyone is helping one another, cheering them on and I loved the Cowbell noise. It just moves me on.