Pleasant Prairie Triathlon - Sprint Distance - TriathlonSprint

First of all, I forgot my wetsuit. Not that I really needed it as the water temp was 74. Nice and warm. But I have a feeling I could have gone faster with it.

I put myself at the front of the wave and was the first one to hit the water. Did about 3-4 strong dolphin kicks and the guy that wound up being first out of the water was already passed me. He was one fast mo-fo. Anyway, I took off hard. Really pushed it hard for the first 200. I was only passed by another 8 people considering I was 9th out of the water. Same as last year. Kind of disappointed.

I was right on the turn around buoy and turned hard. Swam over one guy that was going to slow from the wave in front of us (Sorry dude). Then I buried my head and kept going. It felt fast. Really fast. Faster than I had ever felt in the water. But it wasn't. Going to need to re-evaluate my swim.

I know, I know. You don't win in the swim, but you can lose it. I want to keep pushing it till I'm in the top 5 in my AG.

Swam till I couldn't swim anymore, stood up and ran into transistion.

Wear wetsuit. It would have been worth the time in the water since I'm faster now in T1.

It was ok. For some reason I put my shoes on first instead of putting my glasses and helmet first. Either way, cut last years time in T1 down quite a bit.

Put on helmet and glasses first.

Since the initial part out of T1 was into the wind, I knew there was a bit of tail wind on the outbound and it would be a headwind on the way back in, so I pushed it. Hard.

I could never get my HR below 160. But I pushed it. And passed a lot of people. Got passed by a few as well. It was a very crowded course, with both the Oly AND Sprint folks on it. Lots of people who also don't know the rules of the road. At one point, there were 5 people riding abreast. Ugh!!!! You are not making it any easier on me!!!

I knew the wind was good cause I was doing 25 UP a hill. Heh. This is going to be fun. I hit the turn around, back into the wind and it was harder than I thought. MPH dropped down to about 17-18 and I was really having to tuck and mash. Kept passing people and thinking "keep it up, the pain is only temporary, the reward is forever".

I kept going, got back on the home stretch, hit the last hill, pulled the feet out of the shoes on the down hill, and turned into the parking lot to get ready. Dismounted AT the dismount line and sprinted into T2.

DAMN, over 36:00. I was shooting for sub 34:00. Must have been the extra distance they added on. Ok, fine, but at least everyone has to deal with it.

Gonna have to push it on the run.

Again, nothing but T.I.T.S. At least it was over 20 mph. But not enough. Now I need to keep it over 21. And then 22. You know what I mean.

This sucked. I'm not happy with the racking at all. Took WAY too long. The schmuck next too me, splayed their damn wetsuit all the way down the rack, taking up to 3 feet of space. So I threw it on the ground. And then it must have taken me up to 20 seconds to get the bike racked. Ugh. Horrible. Just horrible.

Got the shoes on, the visor on, grabbed the belt and bib and left.

Pull my head out of my azz and do it right. This one cost me at least 2 places in my AG.

Right calf started to cramp coming out of T2. It was gone by mile 1. Then a little side stitch on the right side. Lengthened the stride, deepened the breath and felt better pretty quickly.

There was a tall guy, very tall, in front of me, the entire run. He and I passed a few other guys, but not many. Frankly, this was kind of uncharted territory for me. First, I had never run this fast in a tri before. Second, I had never had to think about strategy before.

I was hurting. Legs were getting leaden. Lungs were starting to burn. I know I was pushing the HR up without even looking at my watch (which I only looked at 2x on the bike and never looked at on the run).

Hit the turn around on the switchback and he was still up there. So I thought "ok, cut the distance in half by the water station" which would leave me about 1/2 mile to the finish. And I actually did. Narrowed the distance from about 75-80 feet down to about 40.

Passed the water station and knew I had the right hand turn onto the lake trail to try to catch him. So I poured it on. One guy started to fly by me and I heard someone yell "Go get him" so I picked up the turnover.

0.2 miles to go. Lungs screaming, legs protesting.

0.1 miles to go, entering the chute. I could not catch him. No matter how hard I tried. I couldn't catch him. I would speed up and he never would get closer. I finished a total of 20 seconds behind him.

Damn. Well, this is a great learning experience.

Push harder the entire run. Still one of the best runs I've done in a Tri, but I know I can go faster.

Got the finisher medal, some gatorade, and found Beth. She is such a good coach, cheerleader, and a great wife.

We walked around and I got some food. Then Beth and I stood at the finish chute to watch for Stef and Tony. My legs started to ache so we walked further down the course. Finally saw Tony, gave him a high five, and then not too far behind, with a big smile on her face, was Stef. I'm so proud of her.


This is only my second year racing. I've shaved all kinds of time off the same races as last year. I know I still need to get faster in everything, but if I were to rank them I need to speed up my run first, bike second and swim third.

Guess I know what I have to work on in the off season.


One of the best run races I have ever been involved in. Well organized. Well staffed. Just an over all well done race. I will definitely do this one again next year. I plan on doing this race every year. I loved it.