Reeds Lake Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Thought I would have been faster. My goal was 14 minutes. Felt like I was swimming a good pace. Had some navigation issues mainly because the course was marked so poorly. They had 3 markers for the entire course. Two going out and one at the turn. Small markers as well.

Pre-sight the course better, especially if they continue with minimal markers. Didn't think much of it prior to swim since I'm use to courses with more markers than three.

Long run to bike as usual.

Race used excessively large timing chips. Had to sit down to get the wetsuit over the chip. Normally have zero issues with this. Probable added 20 seconds to my T time.

Had difficulty getting right foot into shoe. Took extra 50 yards to get all strapped in.

Work on getting feet in shoes. Never had an issue before and wasn't prepared to have an issue. Maybe practice what went wrong and how to over come it.

Leg's felt weak and my time shows that. Wanted 40 minutes. Climbs seemed harder than last year. Butt hurt in saddle. Need to figure that out.

Used one water bottle between the arms filled with Accerlerade. Had aero bar on seat tube but it was empty. Just used as a faring.

1 salt tab and 1 GU on bike. GARMIN was set to beep every 15 minutes to remind me to drink.

Spend more time on the saddle during race week.

No issues here. Put race belt on while I ran out. Race belt had one salt tab and one GU on it.

Everything went smoothly.

Run went really well for me. I still wanted a faster pace but happy with the time I came in. The last mile was a 6 minute pace, but most of the race was around 8:30. No knee issues. Had a rock in shoe last two miles that was annoying but I didn't want to stop and get it out. Thought I'd cramp up.

Just work on getting pace down.

Had a pepsi and Hammer Recoverite. Stretched a little.


Having a cold that prevented training probable held bike my performance, especially the bike. My legs felt weak on the bike and that is usually my strong part.

I can't figure out why my swim was so slow. I thought I was humming along pretty good. Looking at GPS data, my below average navigation could have caused that. A poorly marked swim course didn't help.


I am giving this race an average rating based on what I expect out of a triathlon. If I were new to triathlons, this would easily be a best rating. There are a ton of newbie's at this race. Few of my friends stopped doing this race because of that. It's not a bad thing it just creates some frustrations.

Example would be my rack area. It was a train wreck. The guy next to me had his helmet on one side of the bike and running shoes on another. There was another guy that set up his transition under neath the rack, in a spot another bike should have gone.

I have no issues with people learning triathlons, one just has to have a patient mentality when doing this race. 2011 was by far the worst experience, especially on the bike.