Rocky Mountain State Games - TriathlonSprint

First triathlon and first wave start from a wade. Had a bit of chop from the swimmers and ran into a few folks in the beginning. Eventually got to some clean water and swam my own race. Good spotting and navigation which is largely due to the fact that I always swim in a lake and constantly spot to smaller buoy's than the big markers in the event. I was barely ahead of the 3rd place clyde from memory. Much easier swim than I had imagined. I wore the wetsuit to get practice with using it as my next event will be in cold water. I did catch up with the previous wave and was able to keep clear as I was typically to the outside.

I would work on my kick as I was almost entirely dragging my legs. I could have gone a bit faster if I had actually kicked more. Perhaps someting to work on this winter.

Was not too bad for my first transition. I know I can make it faster but I felt pretty good. I pulled the wetsuit off and sat down to put on the cycling shoes and socks. Put the helmet on before the glasses and then took it back off. Got underway pretty well. THere was a good bit of distance between the swim exit and the bike start but I dont know if that is usual.

Put on my glasses before I put on the helmet.

I went out a bit hard on the first lap due to the excitement. I was cruising at nearly 40mph on the downhills and was crawling up the hills at about 12mph or so. My focus was to maintain cadence. On the last two laps I tried to stay out of the burn which may have slowed me down a bit.

Ride more. Push a bit more throughout and pace myself better in the start so I dont get behind myself in terms of pacing.

Was fairly quick here. Easily swapped shoes and dropped helmet. Put on number belt and away I went.

Nothing.

This is where I reeled in the two other Clydes. The guy in the lead was a swimmer and he cooked out of the water. The second clyde passed me on the bike and on the run they were ahead of me. I started reeling in the eventual winner and saw that he was catching the current leader. Gradually I was closing on both of them. In the last mile or so the 2nd place clyde passed the leader and I saw that the leader did not run with him. That motivated me to turn on the gas. For the last half mile I was really pushing. I passed the then 2nd place guy and opened up the throttle all the way to the finish line to stay in front. That scored me the 2nd place. I was the fastest of the clydes (from what I saw on the results) for the run split which surprised me.

Run more so I have a better run split and can make up more time if necessary.

Drank some gatorade with my wife and walked around a while.


I have only been training since June 1st. Another month would have really enabled me to come to the event with more speed. I have also been focusing mentally on long distance as my next event is an OLY.


I only have this race to compare as it is my first. I think that there was some organization issues with respect to the timing chips but in general it was no big deal. I had no issues but have no comparison so take it with a grain of salt. In general I am really surprised I did as well as I did. My goal was to hit about 1:30 or so based on my training paces and I exceeded that. To come in 2nd (yeah I know its not my AG that I was second in) was really surprising.