Shawnee Mission Triathlon - Sprint Distance - TriathlonSprint

It was good to get in the water for the warmup swim, but it got really cold when we had to stop and wait 10 minutes for our heat to start. Everyone was literally shaking and shivering, there was no sun whatsoever.

Everyone spread out really horizontally for the start, I was not in the very front, but not in the very back. I took off a little too hard and was short of breath, so I did breast stroke most of the way. I passed a few guys which made me smile :-)

Rounding the bouey was really confusing. The people I was swimming next to, we all thought you made a HARD turn, but in reality we were supposed to make a WIDE turn to catch another couple of boueys. It didn't help that two guys from an ealier heat were hanging on to ropes waiting to be rescued. I thought they were just resting and were still on the main course, but I was wrong. 3 or 4 of us made this mistake and had to be re-directed around the correct boueys... we were treading water for about 5 seconds trying to figure out where to go.

Other than that, I did pretty good on the swim... I swallowed a bunch of water at one point and was forced to turn onto my back to cough it up. I thought I'd make my way to the front of the pack but I never really did.

Running out of the water onto a concrete boat ramp and into an asphalt parking lot was not good on the bare feet, but I guess we all just ignored the pain. The swim time includes this run, maybe 20-30 seconds.

Start in the front, dang it! I was intimidated by the male and female mix, so I again, started in the middle.

It's hard to believe I took that long in T1, but I guess the timing chips don't lie.

This race was different than my last in that each participant had a pre-assigned transition area, no choosing. Mine was, of course, in the next to the furthest away rack from everything. I think a good chunk of my transition times are attributed to the distance I had to run to get to my stuff.

Not much. I felt pretty good about this transition and was really suprised at how long my time was.

If any of you read my last race report, you know how bad I suck at the bike. I was prepared for that. I was not, however, prepared for having to STOP on the BIKE. WTF??

The very first hill made my gears act funny, and I stopped quickly to fiddle with them. That happened to be a baby hill in the grand scheme of things.

The first REAL hill (called the "dam hill" by locals) absolutely killed my legs. Oh, how I tried to pedal. But my legs would literally not go. They were ON FIRE. I saw another girl pulled over stretching and I stopped by her and asked if we were allowed walk, which we were. So we walked together, talking about how great we were at the swim, but how bad we sucked at the bike. People were nice and tried to encourage us as they whizzed past. At the top of the hill I got back on and tried to forget about what just happened.

The course required us to do two laps, so I had to do the dam hill again. And I had to stop again. I was so glad to see the end of the bike portion, holy crap.

It started to rain as soon as I got on the bike, so the roads, and everyone, got soaking wet. The participants didn't care, but I felt bad for the spectators.

There is so much to say here I'm not sure where to begin. This course has made me seriously question my athletic ability, and also question the probabiltiy of continuing to participate in triathlons. I think it's simply a strength issue in my lower body, but jeez it is more than frusterating. Not sure where I will go from here.

T2 was good... again with my transition area being so far away it added a big chunk of time to get to my stuff. All I had to do was rack the bike and switch my helmet for my running hat.

Nothing.

It was still raining on the run, and I felt good about my pace. I stopped once to walk up half of a big hill and once at the water station.

I made a point to pass at least one person, and finished with a strong sprint.

Push harder and figure out how to pace myself slightly faster than I have been running. I am holding back too much thinking I need to save my energy.

Everyone was soaking wet and in no mood to do anything but go home. We headed to the car asap.


Lack of lower body strength.


The pre-race meeting the day before was really helpful. The volunteers were great about encouraging those of us who were struggling.