Greenwood Family YMCA Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I tried to talk myself through what I was feeling on the swim. I knew I was just swimming through the normal "ickiness" of warming the body up since I didn't have time to warm up before the race, but it just winded me. I only did 4 of my flip turns and I lete a guy pass me at the end of the pool with three lengths to go. I drafted off him for the remainder of the swim cuz I felt so tired. I was very disappointed with my split. I swam this race in 4:11 last year and I have done 300 repeats in practice faster than this.

Arrive early enough to warm up.

This is a small triathlon so T1 gets lumped into your bike split. My transition area was in a trash bag because of the rain so I was a little slower in T1 just trying to get my bike shoes and not my running flats.

Race on a sunny day and lay my transition area out like normal.

I took the first turn sitting up and at what I thought was a cautious pace, but I felt my back tire slide just a little. Took the rest of the turns very slowly. I was glad this course is mostly straight. Stayed in the aerobars except on corners. Never had to use my small ring. Kept a nice cadence and good speed on the straight-aways and made full use of gravity on the downhills. I'm pretty confident that I averaged over 21 mph on the bike. My bike time is inflated because of T1.

Nothing.

T2 is lumped in with the run split. Excellent T2 for me. Racked bike by the brake levers, helmut in the open sack, slid my racing flats on, grabbed my number belt and I was on the run!

Nothing.

Legs came back about .25 miles into the run and then I felt good! Tried to pick up the pace cuz I felt good. Got a little gaspy going up hills. All the volunteers were cheering me and saying that I was the first female. This happened last year, too, but I got beat virtually on the course during the run so I didn't get my hopes too high. But it did keep me focused on running cadence and form. I'm pretty sure this was a sub 23 5K as well. My T2 time is added into my run split.

As always, run faster. But I feel like I gave this one everything I had. Definielty a higher RPE then the flat Parris Island run.

Stretched and mingled.


Not arriving at the race venue early enough to warm-up, wet conditions.


Of course this race gets a best vote for me since this is the first time I have ever won overall. I'm so happy that I won this particular event because back in 2004, this was my first triathlon ever. I finished BOP then. Just goes to show what training and experience (and a really nice tri bike) can do.