Madeira Beach Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

As the hubby took off in his wave, a few dolphins swam by to say hello! They must be very curious creatures because they swam the whole course (in the opposite direction). It was beautiful, and I was torn between watching the honeybunny and looking for dolphins.

The swim was nice! The water was very, very shallow for about 80% of the swim. There were a lot of folks walking but pretending to swim. I did well with form, but crappy with swimming in a straight line. Went off course several times. Stayed with the pack for the first half, but a huge off course mistake really set me back and I never caught back up. I'm used to getting bumped and kicked during the swim, but on this race, I got a free proctology exam!

Despite the temptation to push off the bottom like so many of the others, I actually swam every inch of the course. This was not a PB on swim time for me, but it was a good time for the last year or so, so yay me! The big hoorah is that I did better than hubbie on the swim, and since he smoked me on the run & bike, I was happy to have a good swim!



Stay away from the proctology girl! Gotta learn to site.

Transition includes a long run from the beach, which I walked. The time actually spent on getting shoes was average. Despite walking, this was a very fast T1 time for me.

Someday I should practice some beach running, then running on concrete barefoot. I also need to learn to leave the shoes on the bike again...but I'll save that for when I have some skin on my knees again.

The ride was fun! I got to see hubbie in the short section that had a turn around!!! It's so awesome when he does a race with me . . . I love looking for him on the course. He told me later that the DJ today was pretty good (the loud music in the early morning is one of his biggest tri complaints), silly....he didn't hear it becasue he was ON the course!

I went to have a gel that I had on the bike, but it was really bad looking. It was some weird grape flavor that I had been given during a race. I guess I've held onto it too long, cuz it looked VERY expired.
I threw it off and didn't have anything else. I figured it was just a sprint, so it shoudl be fine.

My avg speed was OK today, but I didn't really have that 'fire' to kick ass. I started strong, but let 70 year-old pass me at the end. Well, actually, I beat the 70 year old at the end of the bike.

Learn to go faster than 8mph up hills. As much as I hate the Pinellas Trail, it has some really nice ramps to work on this with. I have to do better at this if I want to do the Morton/Mease tri...I think that one has THREE bridges on the course!

To the triathlete butholes who can't seem to put their bike back where their stuff is without taking up the whole rack, ya'll can kiss my fat butt! And since I didn't see any of the Athenas from my rack in the overall winners list, I am assuming that the TEN seconds it would have taken to rack your bike appropriately would not have cost you prize money!

There was NO space left at all. A marshall/volunteer had to help me with racking my bike. That's CRAZY!

It's pretty disappointing too....in a sport where people are so freindly and encouraging and generally AWESOME people, its crazy that there can also be such selfishness.

Urinate on their transition towels?

A first for me! In my 36 years of going to the beach, this is the FIRST time I've ever worn socks & sneakers on sand. I'm totally not familiar with the sand protocol. I knew to try to get to the water's edge where its harder packed, but in getting there I filled my left shoe with sand. I kept feeling it my toes when I stepped forward. yuck.

A quick look at how this affected my speed:
Mile 1-1.5 (road) 15:37
Mile 1.5 - 2.9 (packed sand) 17:00
Last little bit (real sand) 20:00


Make sure I had a gel on the run.

As I crossed the finish line, hubbie was there and totally excited about his times!! He was happy & excited and I was looking for a place to vomit (really). There was no water at the finish (they had run out) and I was very dizzy and nauseous. I *had* to sit down. Mike found me some gatorade and that helped, but I needed sugar. We headed to the tent and I had a slice of disgusting pizza, when Mike announced he had a gel in his pocket! Yeah!! That fixed me up so that we could gather our stuff & go. I didn't feel normal for at least another hour, and a Jamocha milkshake later.

Even though it was just a sprint, I am slow and I will make sure to always have back-up nutrition available. DH deserved to have a happy and excited wife at the finish.


Poor planning.


I would totally do this race again for one very big reason: GREAT RACE SHIRT!!