Stonebridge Ranch Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I was very disappointed with my swim. My time should have been about 3-4 minutes faster, but my navigation was HORRIBLE! I swam way off course on every leg of the swim, because I could never see the buoys. In my defense though, I dont think the buoys weren't big enough. Also the entire homestretch was directly into the sun. It was one of the worst open water swims I've ever had.

It's tough to complain too much, because obviously some people were able to see the buoys and overcome the blinding sun.

SIDENOTE: My wave had to wait for entirely too long. We gathered at 730, and didnt hit the water until about 815ish. It was pretty annoying.

Not too much I would differently, but I will definitely to continue to practice sighting even while swimming laps in the pool. As for the problem with the sun...I've got good tinted goggles, but they were no match for the sun.

The path to get in transition was really confusing. I felt like I was in a waiting line at the movies...you had to run one way and then U-Turn and Run all the way back down, and then another U-Turn to run to your bike.

My feet were covered with grass and dirt by the end of the whole ordeal. So I had to really wipe off my feet, which always burns time.

Pay more attention at pre-race...although, I dont know if it would have made that much of a difference.

I'm still learning on the bike, so this was a fairly average time for me for this distance. I had some pretty tighte quads at the beginning of the bike, which made for a tough uphill climb into the wind, but I battled through it and felt fine for the rest of the race.

Only complaint was that the bike-in to transition was really abrupt. The dismount line was directly after a 90 degree turn after a fast down hill, so it left very little time to get out of your shoes quickly for dismount.

ride more, ride more, ride more.

I thought I had a great transition considering the short dismount distance, and the kooky run out situation. I racked my bike, shoes on, grabbed my hat and belt and was off in about 20seconds flat...too bad the run out was insanely hard to figure out! Once again I felt like I was trying to navigate the velvet ropes at the movie theatre!

Everyone that was running out with me was complaining about the transition situation. It seemed like a HUGE time waster for everyone

Absolutely nothing. I was really pleased with my actual time spent in T2 getting into my gear. The other stuff was all outside of my control

The run started with a couple of pretty good hills, so the calves started to burn early. At about the 1.5 mile mark I could tell that a calf cramp was about to happen, so I did a quick 10 sec walk to stretch it it out...which worked beautifully.

Got passed by someone in my AG as I was walking, so that served as great motivation for the last half of the run...Thanks nameless 25 year old!!! Don't worry, I passed him with about 200 yards to the finish.

Fight a little harder during the first half of the run. Run a more hilly route. Train harder on sprint distances prior to the run. (my standard run is a 10k a couple times a week, but I work in a couple of sprint runs week of race)

walking and stuffing my face with pizza


poor sighting in the water, kooky transition, and tight leg muscles because of those damn hills.


Overall, this was a good and tough sprint race.

Would I do it again...maybe. The more I think about it, the more I'd probably lean towards yes, based off of the challenging nature of the course...plus I really want to do the swim again because I know I could/should have done much better.