Los Alamos Triathlon - TriathlonMini Sprint

The swim went OK for me, but I did have trouble breathing. I swam freestyle for most of the time, but had to swim on my side to catch my breath a couple of times.

More swim training.

T1 for this race was the bike to swim transition. There was about 100meters between the bike racks and the pool entry. You had to run across a pretty rough parking lot and road (which made it fun). I slipped my feet out of my bike shoes before stopping and then ran to the rack with the bike. From there, I dropped an earplug and wasted some time drinking my Gu/water mixture which I pretty much ignored on the bike.

Practice this transition before the race - especially for someone who isn't used to a bike-to-swim transition.

I kept my heart rate at the lower edge of zone 4 and couldn't give much more on the uphill portion. I was uncomfortable with the speed coming downhill and had to break several times.

Get on a bike sooner than the day before the race. I trained for 4 days on an exercise bike in the gym, but borrowed my friends bike for the race and did not even ride it until the day before the race.

T2 for this race was the swim to run transition. For the swim to run transition, all went pretty well. I quickly dried my feet, put on my shoes, and donned my shirt and hat while running away.

Since there are two transition areas for this race, I didn't have a second Gu/water bottle to put here for the run. Next time, I would have one for my bike and another here for the run.

I had a real hard time catching my breath coming out of the pool. Combine this with an uphill trek and I was hurting on the first half of the run. I started running slower than a 10 min pace and it took a good mile to catch my breath and get into a decent stride.

Get more of that energy drink down on the bike. I was a little dehydrated on the run and was low on energy. (Could have been that I wasn't in very good shape either!) I was able to increase my stride quite a bit on the last half (mostly downhill), but couldn't make up the damage from the first half.

Simple walk off, a banana, a bagel, powerade.


Only one week of training and the altitude.


Overall, this was a fantastic race. Los Alamos is a nice little town tucked away in the beautiful Jemez mountains just west of Santa Fe. Although the course was short, the altitude and hills made it challenging and the scenery kept it from being boring. The unique format (bike, swim, run) was also nice. The swim allowed your legs to recover a little before the run. The only negative I have is the pre-race organization. The bike racks weren't marked and the racks were too close and didn't allow any place to put transition gear. Also, having two transition areas was not ideal because you couldn't get to the T2 area until after getting out of the pool (so you either had to have two pairs of sunglasses or not wear them on the run). Overall, it was a great race and I would definately do it again if I have the chance.