Chances for Children Triathlon - Triathlon

I'm not sure how much I actually swam during this swim. I ran in and during the first lap, I promptly swam into the wall, ran some more, swam way past the buoy, managed to turn around and come back. For the next three laps I ran almost halfway through the pool before starting to swim, and ended up flipping around and backstroking around the buoys because I've never actually had to turn while swimming and it was freaking me out. I missed the buoy entirely on my last lap... just swam past it and turned around. I somehow remained surprisingly calm though, just taking the "uh, well I have to do this before I can go ride my bike, and the pool is REALLY WEIRD so it's not your fault" attitude.

As much of a sucky swim this was, I feel all right about it given the circumstances. It was absolutely impossible to get any sort of swimming rhythm for me, as having to run out every 50 yards and the buoy turnarounds really wasn't expected.

Estimated time. Transition was maybe a 0.15 mile or so run from the pool. Z handed me my glasses as I was exiting the swimming facility so that I could see.

Make sure my socks aren't inside-out before sticking them in my shoes. Woops. I also would like to learn the flying cyclocross leap of doom to get on my bike, something I've never quite been able to get right.

CEP Timing has me at 45:09 but that time includes both transitions - I'm just estimating my time because my brain was everywhere and I wasn't hitting the lap button on my watch. Anyway, using Greg Lemond's old aerobars apparently does make you faster. Lucky aerobars! This was fun and I passed a lot of people. No women passed except one woman in a bright, see-through yellow skinsuit (I could see her bike shorts through it...). I started to cramp a little in my gut towards the end though.

Nothing.

Estimated time again. Changing shoes and such went like butter. Running out of transition felt like caca though. Legs were not working right, and I had that bizarro gut cramp. Z was there and I told him I was hungry. I am always hungry. He in turn took a picture of my butt.

More brickage... especially ones where I ride hard and then run. This felt totally different from the little brick I did the other day for some reason.

I felt like caca for the first 3/4 miles or so. I let out this huge, huge belch at that point though (no one was around), which made my gut cramp almost go away. My legs were still not having it, but I still slogged through. Ate a gel before the 1-mile aid station, and then walked and drank enough water to get it all down. Things felt better soon after (except it was getting noticeably hot and the humidity didn't help), and at the second aid station I walked a bit to drink some water and then dumped it over my head and started running again. I wanted to sprint at the end but my legs were gone at that point.

I need to run more... especially outside in gross hot, humid AZ weather. Hot and dry is one thing, hot and humid is another. Again, more bricks.

Walked around a bit, met Paulettejo from BT, ate an orange slice and some bagel pieces, drank a bunch of water, drank a soda, drove home.


This was my FIRST TRI, so I wasn't sure what to expect but it actually hurt about as much as I thought it would. I was really surprised about how bad the run felt. The weird pool setup, and the hot humid weather didn't help matters but it was still fun. I need to get more comfortable in different types of swimming scenarios and run more too.


The pool setup was fairly unpleasant, but the event was well-run and there were a lot of volunteers and friendly folks.