Tri the Parks - Indian Springs State Park - TriathlonSprint

Lined up in the front of my wave and treaded water waiting for the start (I wasn't about to put my feet down on that nasty lake bottom!). As soon as the gun went off, I took off with one other girl on my left and one moving quickly off to my right. By the first buoy, the girl on my left had tapered down and so I knew that I was the 2nd girl in the water. My stroke felt awesome and almost effortless. We caught up with the men in the wave ahead of us once we made the turn onto the back stretch. Ran into some traffic here, but I tried to stay to the left (near the buoys) and I pushed around most anyone in the way. Finished the swim feeling strong and started run up this huge hill to transition. I could hear people yelling '2nd ladies out' so I knew that there was someone right behind me. I knew that the chips weren't going to register until we hit transition so I kicked it up a notch so I'd be ahead of her on the 'swim'.

Not much - pretty decent swim for me. I still think that I could have pushed a little harder, but I haven't been training for sprint distances so it's hard to guage a pace until after you're finished with the race.

1/19 AG
3/127 Females
19/484 Overall

Once we got into transition, I ran to my spot. Had a little trouble getting my socks and shoes on, but nothing major. Once I was ready, I was afraid that I was going to slip all the way down the hill in transition to the mount line so I might have been a little cautious running.

Same routine - different venue. :) It was a pretty large transition so I'm not worried about the time.

3/19 AG
16/127 Females
95/484 Overall

Don't you hate it when you build up a nice lead in the swim and you get passed by 3 girls in your age group on the bike? I thought that I was handling the course fairly well. Shifting up the hills was great and I was happy with my cadence throughout, but I just seemed to be losing ground to these power house bikers. I wish that I could remember something remarkable about the bike leg, but it just seemed to be over with before I knew it. I drank about 12 ozs of water from my aerobottle and about 6 ozs of gatorade throughout the bike.

Bike is gradually becoming a stronger event for me, but I'm still looking for that extra edge that is going to have me up there with the other gals. Maybe my legs just are in a longer distance type mode right now.

5/19 AG
29/127 Females
207/484 Overall

I love T2. If there was a race of just T2, I think that I might have a chance of winning it overall. :) Bike up, biking shoes off, running shoes on, visor and number in hand and I was off.

Nothing. The run through transition takes a *little* while.

1/19 AG
4/127 Females
29/484 Overall

Ah, the run. I have not been having so many great runs lately. I lost some speed over the winter while I was building up my bike base (and not doing my run workouts), so I was curious to see what my run time would look like for this 5k. I left the TA feeling pretty good and knew that I was in 4th in my age group as of the moment and I also knew that *probably* no one in my AG was going to be pulled out as overall winners. I felt great up to mile 1. I was feeling my 5 mile run from the night before as I headed up hills, but as soon as there was uphill, there was a downhill or flat to keep me going. I just kept telling myself to plod through the uphills and I would get there eventually.

After coming through the last campground (around mile 2.25) or so, i ran into a girl with a 26 on the back of her leg. All I could think was 'Maybe I'll just run behind her for a little bit and then at the very end, I'll sprint ahead of her'. Only problem with this is that I was running just a bit too hard for her pace up the hills. So I passed her and then the next thing I knew she was coming up on me strong (I think that she saw the number on MY leg). She passed me, but didn't have the strength to stay there. I caught up with her again with about 1/4 of a mile to go and picked up my pace a little bit. I had no clue where she was, but I knew that once I got to the grassy area I could basically sprint the whole way in. So that's what I did. And luckily, she did play 'chase the rabbit' that day.

I'm just going to keep training intervals and getting my long runs in. I'm bound to get faster, right?

4/19 AG
35/127 Females
211/484 Overall

Walked around and talked to people that I knew. Cheered other BTers into the finish line. Looked at results. Put my stuff in my car. Hung around for the awards ceremony to collect hardware.


This was always a 'C' race so I didn't take any time off of training beforehand. Also, I haven't been training for this distance race.

3/19 AG
18/127 Females
129/484 Overall


I like the Tri the Parks series. They are very welcoming and great for newcomers to the sport. I thought that this race venue was excellent though I think that the number of participants (around 550) was a little too much for this distance race and course.

Also, I had a great time hanging out with everyone from BT both before and after the race!!!