Big Fish Triathlon - Sprint Distance - TriathlonSprint

Water was a little choppy, but not too bad. Got hammered a few times in the start by people, and passed by a few. Things spread out around the turnaround after the buoy, and I gained some of my ground back - I think some of the people I thought were ahead of me were in the previous wave, because I was 9 out of the water, which felt good. I breaststroked pretty much all of the second half. I keep thinking I'll look stupid breaststroking, but my breaststroke is actually faster than my freestyle. Plus has the advantage of letting you see where you are going. Maybe I should just stick to this.

Try to get out of crunch - although that just seems to be part of tris. Not worry about looking like an idiot breaststroking.

I managed to jog to the transition area, which was good. Swam in my bike shorts - maybe a tri suit would make sense.

Need new shoes - mine are laced and are mountain bike shoes. Velcro would probably speed up the transition. Also ran out with my bike on my left, not my right, so had to switch around to mount.

I was riding out, and flying down the hill at the start - my speedometer said I hit 40 mph, which I never do after having some crashes. Also realized I'd have to come back up that hill on the way back, immediately before run, which was daunting. In general, course was fast on the way out, slower on the way back.

Given what I had to work with, this was OK. I should have had my bike checked out before the race - there were some gearing issues, etc. I've got to figure out how to get my bike pace up a bit.

Transktion was fairly quick - I was reasonably happy.

Could have jogged a bit more, but wanted to save my strength.

I was pretty disappointed with the run. It's my weakest part of the whole thing. I made it going slow and trotting for the first mile or so, but didn't have the mental toughness to stay running the whole time. I'd really like to get my running time into the 20s. After some walking breaks in the middle, managed to stay running for the last mile, and finished reasonably strong.

Gotta do more run workouts, esp. bike/run bricks. I'll never be a great runner, but could improve. Also, should have hydrated more on bike, and probably eaten some energy gel - kind of ran out of gas.

I agree with the other poster - the towel was awesome. Had a hard time finding a place to stretch. Walked around, water, gatorade, muffins and melon. Finally, went out and stretched a bit, but mostly just calves and a bit of hamstrings. Could have used a bit more on hamstrings, since I'm stiff today.


1. I need to lose some more weight (although I nearly qualified for Clydesdale :-) ). 2. More consumption during the race of water and food - will help keep head in run. 3. Convince my wife to let me buy a more expensive bike!!!


I had a blast - if there were half points, I'd probably give it a 4.5. My only disappointment, really, was that I didn't know when my wave was supposed to start until I got to the race - but maybe that was an oversight on my part. I was in the last wave, which meant that I had a lot of waiting.