Caveman Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Start was a little odd. Starter had me stand on the mat, rather than wait and cross it, which seemed incorrect. I wasn't quite clear when he started me, so I looked back to be sure. The pool was shallow, so I did a sit down, slide in start.

My first 2x25 was slightly faster than I intended to swim the rest, but still comfortable. During this time the woman in front of me pulled away from me a bit, and the two men behind me caught up to me a bit. By the 4th or 5th lap, I'd caught up to a comfortable distance to the woman ahead (but wasn't gaining on her any further) and the men behind me had dropped back about a quarter pool length.

I wasn't counting laps carefully, and I was happily surprised to see the woman in front of me climb out of the pool.

My goal for the swim this time was to breathe out smoothly, avoiding the breath-holding and hyperventilating I've done in in the past, and I definitely accomplished this. I held virtually the same pace throughout the swim, and I exited the swim feeling every bit as good as when I got in the water. Breathing was smooth and steady throughout, and though I did breath hard a couple of times when I came up for turns, I didn't have to wait to recover my breath, and I didn't feel uncomfortable at any point during the swim.

For the first four or five laps, I didn't push off the wall smoothly, and I lost a lot of the additional momentum of the push-off. Next time I'll position my arms more carefully before the push-off to be in a more hydrodynamic position from the beginning.

I pulled my cap and goggles off directly out of the exit. I ran this time. Glasses and helmet went on smoothly, as did socks and shoes. Had to maneuver bike out of the rack due to the position of my bag and the person across the rack's bag, but this accounted for only a second or two. I wore no gloves this time, saving another couple seconds.

Coming out of the swim, I thought I'd be entering the transition area from the opposite end. So, I turned the wrong way entering transition. I only went about 5 or 10 feet before I turned around, but this probably accounted for another 5-10 seconds at least. Next time, I'll identify the swim exit/transition entry as fully as I did the run and bike entry/exit, and I'll walk that portion of the transition path, too.

I had a small bit of trouble clipping in, though it didn't slow me down much. (I had my left foot clipped in, so I continued pedaling with it during the process.) I think running in the bike shoes on both ends, as well as the full-stop mount/dismount, is now actually a hinderance for me, so it's time for me to learn to prep the bike (and more importantly, myself) for leaving the shoes on the bike and a flying dismount.

I started pulling hard from the beginning, and worked throughout to maintain an even, hard effort level, which I felt like I did. I also focused on maintaining momentum through corners (slowing as little as possible while leaving a little safety margin). There was much more traffic on course than in my past event, and as I was passed by the officials' motorcycle four times, I put more thought into passing this time, too.

The course did have a vertical element, but were relatively gradual with no extreme increase in effort. As per plan, I backed off to what felt like 60-70% on the final hill before the bike exit.

I also looked at my watch significantly less than usual at this event. Having spent a lot more time on the trainer, I felt comfortable that I was in my effort zone and in my cadence zone, so I just checked mileage a few times.

Overall, I was very pleased with my bike performance. Spending more time in the drops into the wind might have yielded a few add'l seconds.

Rack was almost empty, so racking the bike was easy. With no gloves and speed-laced shoes, this was an easy transition. Shoes slid on easily (even with somewhat numb hands). I rubber-banded the excess strap on my run belt this time to make it easier to find the clip by feel. Remembered to run immediately, all the way through transition and out.

Not much. If anything, I might have lost a handful of seconds because I was surprised how little I had to do. Next time I'll do a run through or two the day before.

I had planned to stay under 9:00 for the first mile, then try to stay under 8:30 to mile 2.5, then go for it. But the entire first half of the course was downhill, so after the first 1/4 mile or so, I decided that it'd be dumb to throw way the gravity bonus. So I ended up between 8:00 and 8:30 for the first half, then tried to maintain 8:30 or so on the way back uphill. The run felt significantly better than my past timed tri 5k. Hill repeats in training paid off as the hills didn't seem nearly as menacing as they previously had.

Around the 2.5 mile point, I started to feel pre-cramps in my legs (not surprising) as well as my stomach. I considered slowing to avoid throwing up, but kept going, which turned out to be the right decision since the stomach cramping went away before the finish. Rounding the final ~400m to the finish I opened up completely.

I'm proud of this run. It was just ~20 seconds slower than my 5k PR (a lactate threshold test done fully rested with a good warmup).

In hindsight, I would have run harder off the start. But to know to do this, I would have had to see a vertical profile of the run, and it wasn't available. (The path was changed a week before the event to take advantage of a newly-opened paved trail path.) This does underscore the need to review vertical profile of run/ride before an event, however, and accommodate it in the race plan.

None, unless you count stopping and shooting the bull with my coach and friends.


Lack of complete course knowledge (knew the bike/run courses and T2, but missed the swim exit on T1), lack of knowledge of my own limits (could I have pushed harder on the bike?).


This was an excellent race event. It was very well organized: entry wait was short, start was on-time and fast, there were lots of volunteers on-course to help (and they were extremely friendly), and the course was great. Post-race was a lot of fun, with good access to food, water, and services which kept lots of folks hanging around for a good time. I'll definitely do this again (or other Dallas Athletes events).