Lone Star Triathlon Festival - Sprint - TriathlonSprint

Definitely glad I opted for the wetsuit - not for water temp sake, just for leg flotation and overall comfort. About 100m away from the finish, it started pouring. Fantastic. I was really nervous that the thunderstorms we had seen off in the distance (and that were forecasted the night before) were rolling in and that the race would be called. Thank goodness it wasn't.

Not die on the swim. I was noticeably winded when I came up the ramp.

Holy cow, wetsuit strippers are the most brilliant idea EVER. That woman stripped my wetsuit off like it was her life purpose. God bless her. It got somewhat hung up on one of my ankles, but shoot, I can't imagine it made more than 0.5 seconds difference. What was worse were all the people from the waves in front of me who were walking and blocking the path. I had to run off the nice carpet so that I didn't get hung up. Transition walkways should be like all traffic - left lane for passing only! And please don't just chill out in the middle of the carpet!

Nothing, really.

Maiden voyage on the new hot K-Factor was quite a success!! I clearly have room for improvement, but overall, not a bad ride. I passed way more people than passed me, so that's always encouraging. Not sure about my pace or cadence, but it felt fairly reasonable. I'm bummed that the weather and location conditions have left their mark on my new beautiful bike (some small rust forming that I can't get off for the life of me). I've also made some mental notes about fit changes that I need to make. And for the love of God, I MUST have a new seat - the one I have currently was miserable.

Be stronger on the bike so I don't have to change gears as often.

Luckily my racking spot was very close to the bike in/out. So I didn't have far to run in my shoes. Overall satisfactory, I guess.

Go faster? I don't really know.

TONS of volunteers along the route (good job and THANKS to everyone at the BT station!). Unfortunately, my plan from last time backfired. I turned my footpod on before the start of the swim, but wouldn't you know it, the stupid thing is too smart... it turned off after x amount of time without movement. So all along the run I had no clue how fast I was going - so apparently I just figured, run faster. Ha! I think I got a lot of motivation from comfortably passing a decent amount of people. Unfortunately, I saw the two girls from my age group FLY by me. No one had their age written on their calves, but I recognized the girls when they picked up their awards later. Oh well - no way do I think I'm ready to run a 7min mile yet (what it would have taken to fend them off - or a faster bike, of course). I think I should simply be thankful that I finished the race before the sky literally opened up. I'm not kidding when I say all of a sudden, buckets of rain were falling from the sky. It was miserable. I feel incredibly sorry for anyone (A LOT of people) still on the race course. Visibility was decreased to probably only a few feet, so I can't imagine what it would have been like to have been on the bike course.

Figure out a way to simultaneously put my shoe on and turn the footpod thing on. This might take practice.

Sadly, just walking around in the rain and eating pizza/drinking tea/beer.


Lack of leg strength.


My amazingly supportive Mom (to anyone who was there, she was likely one of the loudest bystanders) and my boyfriend (who took some great pictures) were SUCH troopers. We were all completely drenched by the end of the event, but no one complained and was so positive. I can't describe how awesome they both were and how thankful I was to have them both there.

As for the race, it was absolutely fabulous. I have never seen so many volunteers lining a race course with such enthusiasm. The pre-race expo was AWESOME. Tons of very worthwhile vendors with samples and great sales. It was terribly unfortunate that the weather clearly spoiled some of the post-race festivities (Budweiser had a really cool mini-patio area set up). But even despite the weather, the effort that was put into the race definitely showed. It was outstanding.

PS - if anyone else stayed at the Ramada... did your room feel like a swamp also? I know it was very humid outside, but man... our room never felt dry - no matter what I did. Also, our door didn't even lock properly - every time we left we had to jiggle it just right or it'd open right up. Note to self, don't stay there again.