Wildbear Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Good swim - didn't push too hard, especially on the first section which was against the current. I stayed with the main group of the wave, and we caught several people from the previous wave before the first buoy. I felt bad for hitting the one person in the back of their head, although they did stop and lift their head suddenly. No problems with navigation today.

Could have pushed a bit harder.

Fairly long run from the beach through the woods to the transition area. Actual transition was smooth and fast. I went sockless so no worries about cleaning/drying my feet.

Pretty good ride - the wind was pretty rough at times, especially in the last four miles when it was a direct headwind. There was also a section of unpaved road during mile three that slowed things down. Then the big hill hit - I stood and cranked the best I could, and passed a ton of people (even though I was only managing 7-8 mph at some points). Disheartening to see the average speed on my bike computer drop from 21 down to 18 in the span of half a mile. I spent the rest of the ride trying to bring the average back, although that headwind did not help at the end.

Probably one of my fastest transitions ever - so fast I almost forgot to take my helmet off (I turned to start running away from my spot and then felt it still on). The sockless thing works great - no problems at all running without them, so I think I'll be going sockless at my olympic race next week.

New 5k PR! Started picking people off steadily - I passed about 10 people and never was passed myself.

What I'm most proud of about this run was the last mile. I saw a guy up ahead who looked the part of the major stud triathlete - sponsored jersey and all - and I started reeling him in. He heard me coming and started pushing it, but I passed him with about half a mile to go. I then started to have negative thoughts of "all right, nice try Rob, but this guy is better than you and will probably catch you" to which I told myself "No freaking way" and kept pushing as hard as I could to the finish, beating him by about ten seconds. I had noticed that he was in my age group, but what I didn't know til later was that my decision to pass him and my effort to stay ahead of him made the difference between 3rd and 4th place.

Good race - it did seem to take a long time to get results up, but that's more of an issue with the timing company than with the race director.

So I met my goal for this year of placing in my age group, and early in the season too. I really didn't think it would happen at this race, but it did. I never thought getting some silly little bronze medal could make me so happy - I'm still laughing and smiling about it as I write this. I beat last year's time by over two minutes, and was faster in every aspect of the race, so I have to be pretty happy about that too.