Neosho Sprint Triathlon - Triathlon

Decent swim. Had us self seed then started swimmers every 15 seconds. As this is my first tri, it was a little weird starting in front of that many people who had so much more tri experience than me. I caught up to the two people in front of me after about 150 yards, but didn't want to have to sprint to get ahead of them, so I just cruised the rest of the way. Timing mats were just outside of transition, so this time includes about 20 sec of getting through transition.

Go in front of the ladies who said they had the same time as me :).

Decent transition. Dropped my goggles and put on my sunglasses and helmet. Things seemed to go so fast that I took about 5 seconds to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything. I had my shoes rubberbanded on the bike, but just to stay out of the way while I got to the mount line. Jogged with bike past mount line, got my feet in the shoes and took off. Biked for about a mile before strapping shoes completely on.

Not take the time to overthink. Rubberbands worked great. Maybe velcro shoes a little sooner. Although, getting second overall on T1 in my first tri seems decent.

Decent course. The roads were a little crappy at times, and although they had one lane blocked off on the main roads, crossing the road to get to the blocked off lane was sketchy - the volunteers were there but weren't very proactive about stopping traffic and waiving me through, so I had to slow way down to make sure I wouldn't get flattened.
The wind wasn't too bad, but it seemed to switch so that I had a headwind about 65% of the time. Again, not a huge head wind but it was disappointing to not have the tailwind on the way back.
My only complaint about the course (other than the bad road section) is the layout made it so that you couldn't take advantage of the hills. We had to ride up the hills, then on the way back the hill ended at a turn, so you couldn't capitalize on that speed.

Push harder. As this was my first tri, I was a little conservative (read too many race reports about people overcooking the bike and getting killed on the run). As my run is my weakest area, I wanted to make sure i could have a decent run. In hindsight, i could have pushed a lot harder and been just fine.

Racked bike and sat down to put on socks and shoes. Put one shoe on then realized I still had my helmet on. Took that off, put on other sock and shoe and took off. Run out of transition was up a slippery hill.

Not much. Legs felt tired after the bike, but not too bad.

Started off too fast and felt a little sick to my stomach around half a mile in. Backed off a little, then things got better. Held back a little to make sure I could finish strong. Ran the whole way, and negative split every mile.

Again, in hindsight, I could have pushed this much harder, but for my first race, I'm pretty happy with it. Just need to keep working on the run.

Hugged and kissed my wife and girls who were there to support me. Drank a couple of chocolate milks and walked around a bit.


Real life got in the way of training for a couple of months. Clearly my bike/run are my weak points, and I need to focus on those. The competition was much more difficult this year as my time from this year would have won my age group (not come in last :)).


This was a great race, and an awesome place for my first tri. The volunteers were amazing and all over the place. Overall, very happy with my effort. I had a goal of going sub 1:20:00, and I made that (though just barely).