'Tri The Rock' Triathlon - TriathlonMini Sprint

Last year, I was way off with my swim prediction. This year, I did much better. I think I passed three people; 2 let me go at the wall and I passed one going "three wide" in the lane. My goal was to keep it real easy and keep aerobic, but I only halfway succeeded in this. But, it was only 300 yds, so I still felt real good after.

Last Year: 6:26
Improvement: 0:59

Not much. This went real well.

My philosophy is to take my time in the transition area and it shows in my times. It also felt like everything took me forever (ie putting on socks, getting helmet, sunglasses, etc).

I could probably better organize so that it flows better.

This is where I was going to make up the most time from last year. I remembered this as a rolling hills course, but still thought I'd be able to be fast on it.

I started passing people immediately. Because of the swim start spacing one person every 10 seconds, the bike course is really lonely. You do see people, but there were times when I couldn't see another racer ahead of me. I stuck to my plan of resting on the downhills and then attacking the uphills. Most of my passing was done going up the hills.

In the first half, I noticed a house that looked familiar. I checked the distance and sure enough, that was where I sat off the side of the road to redo my shoe laces last year when they got caught up in my chain/cranks. I was going clipless today :)

For almost the first half, I was flying, although the hills were bigger and more often than I had remembered. There was also a crosswind which didn't really seem to affect much. I was thinking that I was going to have a killer bike split.

About 7 miles in, I made the turn to the road which would bring us back to the Y and was greeted with a wicked wind. I think from this point to the end, I didn't hit 20mph on anything other than a downhill. Again, the hills continued to be bigger and more often than I had remembered, but I knew I was still riding pretty strong.

Last Year: 48:54
Improvement: 7:05

Nothing, this was a real good ride and I put in a good, hard effort. I possibly could have pushed a little more on the second half, but I'm really thrilled with my improvement on the bike.

Much better with this transition. My rack was the first off the bike. I still didn't rush and took a few seconds to just look around at everybody else.

Leave my sunglasses in transition.

Just like the last tri this year, at the start of the run, I had a stitch-like pain on the top of my shoulder. This held me initially at a bit of a slow pace. I did see Haley up ahead of me and as I was slowly getting rid of my shoulder pain, I was slowly catching up with Haley. I ran with her for a little bit and then went ahead just before the turn-around.

The run back was felt much better and I got into a good pace. One of my goals for this race was to try to find that pace that I could hold for the 10k in my next race - my first Oly. I'm pretty sure I found it right at a 8 min/mi pace.

Before I left the sidewalk, I picked up the pace a bit and finished strong. I was suprised at my pace as I figured the beginning of the run would have kept me in 8:15-8:30 pace range.

Last year: 26:52
Improvement: 3:48

Find what is causing my shoulder pain. It's not any type of muscular pain and I don't think it's from bike position as I rode my tri bike for this race and it happened on my road bike (no aerobars) in my last race.

I did do some hard effort bricks at WRL between the races and only had the pain once.

Chatted with the BT jockstraps (jcagg90, Dogersmom, & Doughboy) and went to find my family. Well, my wife missed me on the bike return and was worried that I was flatted/wrecked on the course. So, she didn't see me finish.


I'm completely floored by my progress and performance over the past year.


I really like this race. It's well run, beginner friendly, and a nice race to test your all-out performance. It doesn't hurt that it's only 15 minutes from my house.