Hansgrohe Acworth Women's Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Whew! The triathlon swim is hard. I'm a pretty good swimmer so I thought this part would be easier for me. Instead, we ran the first 100 yards or so in the water to the first bouy. There was no way to swim in the sea of legs so we just kept running. Based on my time, I think I should have seeded myself towards the front of our wave (behind the really speedy folks), but was concerned because it was my first tri so I went in the middle. There was no room to move without kicking or hitting anyone or running into the other racers. The water was the color of milky tea so I couldn't see anyone until my arms were already running into them. I just kept trying to make forward progress and look up every 5-10 strokes. Mostly I stopped or did breaststroke to get my bearings. The buoys were huge and orange, so they were easy to see, so that was nice. I never got into any rhythm at all, and as soon as I rounded the last buoy, my goggles started leaking so I was just trying to get done as fast as possible before my contacts floated off. Ran up the beach and down the sidewalk to the transition area. There was a wading pool of clean water to wash your feet and I stomped right through there with everyone else - what a great idea!

Seed myself more towards the front and an edge. Try to get into some kind of rhythm. Relax more during the swim.

I thought I had rocked this transition, but clearly I did not. The practice was good because I felt comfortable, but I have no idea what I did for 2 mins, 30 secs.

Roll my socks into donuts for easier application. Lose the shirt and wear a tri-top with pockets instead OR affix the gu flask to my bike.

Biking is my weakness so I tried to hammer it as hard as possible. My average training speed (with stoplights, etc) is under 15 mph, so this ride was awesome for me. I had hammer gel at miles 3 and 10 and alternated water and cliff electrolyte drink from my bottles as I rode. This could have been too much nutrition for a sprint, but my husband and I discussed how I might perform better if I had more fuel so I ate/drank a lot. My bike didn't want to shift into the big ring so once I got it up there, I tried to keep it in the big ring so that I wouldn't have to risk it not going back there later. This helped me go faster but I had to pedal harder to maintain this ring. This was my first bike race too, so I tried hard not to draft and to pass politely. The course was narrow in places and we were all bunched together, so it was really hard to get away from the other racers. It was really fun to speed down Hwy 41 without stopping for anything. I really enjoyed the bike portion of the race.

Learn to bike better, have my gears working correctly for the race, maintain a constant cadence, go faster.

All I had to do here was remove my helmet, glasses and gu flask and pick up my visor and race belt. I had a few seconds on indecision on whether to bring my phone, which was dumb.

Not bring the phone. I wasted time on the run trying to affix the phone to my person because it flapped against my back if I left it in my shirt. I don't know why I thought I needed it anyway. Switch my garmin to the run function for this part of the race or figure out how to make it do multi-sport.

This run was really hard from the beginning. I messed with the phone until I got out of the beach area. Then, my calves complained for about the first half mile as I got my run legs back. I kept waiting to settle into a comfortable run pace, but it just never happened. My friend Nat was ahead of me and my first goal was to keep her in sight, because I knew that I couldn't catch her. After mile one, when I got gatorade instead of water by mistake (ick!), I just concentrated on keeping moving. At points, I ran with my eyes closed. People started walking during mile three, which was tough, but the course was that challenging. Thank goodness it wasn't sunny or we would have all been slower. I finished at under an 8 min/mile pace, which is pretty good for me, so I'm very happy with this run.

Overall it was a good run, despite the struggling, so I think better conditioning is the only thing I could have done differenly.

Water and banana with my family and Nat and her family in the finish area. WOW, did that water spray at the finish line ever feel good!


Inexperience at triathlon and ineptitude on the bike.


This race was really fun. I don't have any basis for comparison since this was my first tri, but I think the race itself was well run and organized but the post-race stuff could have been better. It was weird to finish so far from the transition area and there was not a good area to gather for post-race socialization.