Littleton AppleMan Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

As in my first 1/2 mi tri (see Webster Lake) I did breast stroke for much of the course, so I was dreadfully slow. On the other hand, I never panicked and kept my breathing even. I even passed a few other slow-bies and just steadily kept going so that I could reach the bike and run portions of the race.

Train! I was much better prepared earlier in the summer. Not swimming for two weeks prior to the race was not my brightest idea ever, but sleep and health pulled rank over training.

The transitions were not clocked, but this was not my fastest ever. I need to find a good set of tri clothes so that I need to do less changing between the swim and the bike. Otherwise, not bad.

A brief false start. My bike computer wire had somehow got trapped between my brakes and the wheel, so I had to stop the bike and fix this. Otherwise, this was an extremely pleasant ride. The hills were hard but not too strenuous. There were some nice long downhills, and the turns were doable without slowing too much. There were a LOT of people on the course and I was constantly passing and being passed. I also met my match (Hi 353!!) who ended up pacing me for the rest of the race. We passed each other several times and she kept me going at a good pace.

I should do more sprints and hill workouts on my bike instead of just long distance rides. I also may drop the Goo if I can make sure I have Gatorade instead of just water. Some calories are good, but if I can avoid noxious energy paste, all the better.

The racks were overfull in this race in general, but I didn't appreciate the other bikers completely crowding me out of my own narrow space. I left my bike leaning against one of theirs and crawled around underneath for my sneakers. Not ideal.

I had a stitch right at the beginning of the run, and the first 1/2 mile was uphill. This was not appreciated, though I knew we'd get to enjoy it for the last half mile back. I caught up with 353 again and felt well-paced enough to keep running despite the stitch until the mega-climb in the forest. When everyone else walked, I walked too, just until I reached the top of the hill.

In general, I felt pretty good about the run. I'm not a runner by any means, but I ran through all of the course except for that one bouldery climb. I did get passed by a few in the very end because I didn't have enough energy to sprint the last stretch. If I got a few more training runs in, I would have been fine.

Stretching and ice cream!


Training! The last two weeks of sleeplessness and jetlag and stress clearly did not help. On the other hand I feel better knowing my age group is just that fast. I'm slow in general, but knowing two of the three fastest women in the race were in that age group makes me feel a little better about my rankings.

Running this race was fulfilling a promise to myself, but next time I will be much more prepared for it.


This race had a lovely course chock full of cheering townies along the entire stretch. It also was hilly enough in both the bike and the run to be a challenge, without breaking me! I would do this race again any day (um, with the exception perhaps of tomorrow!)