Buck Creek Triathlon - Sprint Distance - TriathlonSprint

Wow what can I say..I just about drowned at the start of the swim! I got started and went to take my first breath looking left. Just as I did a huge wave hit me and I took in zero air and all water. I literally thought I was going to die. If I had been in deep water I am not sure what would have happened. Luckily I was able to stop, stand and compose myself. Tried to swim a bit more and my goggles weren't working properly. The right eye would not stay put and leaked water like crazy. Finally I just moved the goggled off my eyes and onto the top of my head and just did the rest of the swim without them. The rest of the swim felt ok to me, but I must say, I really thought that the swim length was much longer than 750M, but the time seems about right I guess.

Oh I don't know...maybe actually do some training for the swim for a change! :) I really need to get some lessons and spend more time in the pool/lake. Even if I could just improve to the point of actually swimming the entire distance I would move up in the standings quite a bit actually.

Not too bad actually. My goal was to speed both transitions up this race and I did. I would have been about 1:30 for T1 but for some reason my Garmin wasn't working and I spent some time trying to get it working, then just gave up and took off.

Not much, next time if my Garmin isn't working I am just moving on.

The bike was my strongest part of the day. I felt awesome on the bike. I have know idea of how many folks I passed, but I know they came in bunches! It did take me a bit of time to get my shoes on and get upto speed, but I was just cruising the entire route. I thought my time/speed was alot quicker than what was posted, but that's ok, as I recall I was only passed maybe 2-3 times on the bike total.

I need to get some more training work in my bigger ring. I usually stay the entire ride in my middle ring and I could be much faster if I used the bigger ring more, which I think I am capable of doing.

More work on putting my shoes on while riding.

This went really quick and I was very pleased. I got some Yankz for my running shoes a couple of weeks ago and I went without socks again which I am finding that for sprints this is just fine for me.

Not much, maybe run a bit quicker out of TA and try to get into stride faster.

Well this is where something special happened on the day. I lost my last grandmother a week ago on Saturday. She never got to see me race and while I was up seeing her last week just a few days before she passed, she has asked me how I did in my first tri! I know grandmom was watching today and I know she was smiling on me. About 3/4 of a mile into the run my left calf locked up. I had to walk for a bit and then tried to run again. It wouldn't work so I walked for a very short time. I looked up and said "Gram I know you are watching right now, and if you can help loosen this calf up some that would be great!" Not too long after that my leg started to feel better and I was able to run again. I started to puddle up a bit and just kept thinking of gram during the rest of the run. I slowed down a number of times next to folks that were struggling with the run and just gave them some encouragement and to keep plodding on. I saw one of the older guys after the race that I had chatted with and he actually came up to me and hugged me and said, man you don't know how much that helped me! That felt awesome.

No for the part that I feel terrible about! I felt great about my race and as I rounded the last section heading into the finish line I really felt like I might have had a shot at a quicker time than my first tri. There was a nice lady in front of me that I had chatted with a bit on the run and I was going to let her have a peaceful finish all by herself. Then I saw the clock and it read 1:55 and change. I was like you have to be kidding me! Now I need to sprint just to get in under 2hours! So I kicked up all the energy I had left and blew by the poor lady, only to have the announcer say my time of 1hr36min and change! :( I felt terrible, but now I feel even worse as I see my actual time was 1:45 something, not much better than my first race...so to the poor lady that I went by, I apologize deeply. I wasn't going to win any awards or money and normally I would have left you on your own...

I need to do more bricks, plain and simple. I am also going to start increasing the length of my run also.

I did get a massage on my legs, which really helped my left calf out alot.


The swim for sure, no doubt about it!


I really liked this race. The only issue that I didn't like was the huge hill that we had to run up from the beach to the TA. Not anything the race folks could or can do about it, but man after spending as long in the water as I do, that is one killer hill. :)