Mighty Mite - TriathlonSprint

I started the swim at a relaxed and reasonable pace. I tried to make sure my breathing was easy and my technique was strong. I tried to stay relaxed throughout the whole swim. I noticed that, although I started toward the outside, I started catching people around the half-way point of the swim. I continued to catch people as I made my way up to the transition area. The swim this year was much stronger than last year.

Drafting was pretty hard, since the water is pretty murky. I did find a few feet after the half-way point, but I usually out swam them after a few yards. I rememerb just concentrating on getting a full pull and thinking "long" thoughts.

Not much. I did really well, a lot better than I thought I would. I think swimming is going to be one of my strong points for the triathlon.

For the overall swim rank, I chose good because there is no Excellent! category.

T2 was a lot faster, part of which is due to my tri suit. I wobbled a couple of times, getting into my sockas and shoes, but overall I think I did okay. And of course, they had the obligatory "Stuff your gear into a bag" contest, which took a bit of time as well.

I definitely need to work on my bike mounting. I need to find some way to be comfortable getting on the bike and up to speed quickly.

I felt really good on the bike and really tried to put in a strong effort. I managed to keep a strong cadence throughout, including going up the hills. They had no real tough climbs, but just a series of rolling hills. I really worked well on keeping the speed up, including rolling along several of the flats around 22-23. Now I just have to get some good TT gear and move up my times a bit.

At the end of the ride, I spun a little bit to try and loosen up the legs for the run.

Try to drink a bit more towards the beginning of the ride.

They had these funky wheel racks for the bikes, instead of the typical triangular steel seat racks. This made things interesting when I tried to get my front wheel in the slot, I missed a couple of times which definitely slowed me up. Coming out of T2 was not too bad.

Get the wheel in the slot on the first try. =D

The start of this run sucks. There's no other way to say it. They route the course through the sidewalks of the college, whcih go up, right, left, left, up, right then left, all in about the first 200 yards. This totally kills all attempts at getting a steady pace going. Then, as soon as the roads opened up, I got a killer side stitch. This happened in about the same place as last year. I walked a bit until it eased up, then started running agian. After the side stitch, I managed to hold a pretty even pace.

The end of the course was just plain mean. They have you come down the street towards what lloks like the finish line, but make you go around the block first, then back to the line.

More running practice and definitely more brick workouts. With a decent bike to run transition, I think I can do better on my next race.

I think this should have been called a "cool down" section. I put some ice on my neck right after crossing the line. It fetl great. I don't there is any other time where having ice on your back would feel good. I also spent some time walking around and drinking plenty of water.


I definitely think my workouts from the past month or so should have been more consistent. I felt that, starting in May, things just got real hard all of a sudden.


More chairs and post race activities would have been nice. Otherwise pretty good.