Smithfield Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Overall felt good. I passed about 3-4 people. I was held up about 1/3 length of pool once but otherwise no troubles. I felt fairly strong last 100 meters. Goggles remained fog-free. I used a drop of tear-free shampoo followed by a lot of rinsing -- this works great to keep them from fogging. Five minutes was my goal, so this part of race went well.

1) Work on flip turns under lane ropes.
2) Wear swim top

I knew this would be interesting as this was my first transition and I hadn't practiced it. Came out of pool and jogged to bike. First I put feet on towel and tried to put on socks (not too bad) and bike shoes (took too long). Then I took off swim cap and goggles (good). The real problem was putting on my race top with number already pinned to front. The shirt curled up on my back and I almost ripped the shirt trying to get it down. The numbers ripped on one corner It is hard to put a tight shirt on when wet. This took at least 20-30 secs. Then I put on jacket, sunglasses and helmet and more or less speed-walked to bike start.

1) Wear swim top
2) No socks
3) Shoes clipped to bike
4) Run during transition!
5) Jump on bike
6) Most of all, practice this ahead of time....

Miserable. There was a 15-18 mph (mostly) crosswind the whole time. It was bitter cold even with my loose-fitting Nike wind "braker", which essentially acted as a wind brake the whole ride. Hands became numb but this really didn't bother me much. I felt like I could never get up to speed without wind smacking me down. Rode with full water bottle pretty much the whole way. Drank only about 1/3 of it.

1) Need a warm, tight fitting cold weather shirt for these cold, windy conditions.
2) Drink more water early on or bring less.

Not as bad as first transition, but still pretty pathetic. Dismounting was pretty much coming to full stop. Speed walked/light jogged with cycling shoes on to racking area. Racked bike no problem. Helmet off good. Switching shoes went OK. Then I had to re-pin one torn corner of my race numbers which took at least 10 secs. Then I realized my legs were shot.

1) Need race number belt.
2) No socks and jump off bike
3) Run in transition

My legs were jello for first mile at least. I was literally concentrating on staying upright for about 300 meters or so. I never cramped, but felt like I was about to several times. I couldn't get my legs moving. I was cold throughout. My legs started coming around by the end. I suspect my last mile was better than my first two. I'm actually surprised my time wasn't worse because I felt like I was wading through concrete the whole time.

1) Practice running immediately after cycling hard. I need to adjust quicker.

suppress nausea, hug kids. Never even occurred to me to do a "proper" warm down.


Hard to assess to what extent being sick this week impacted my race. Wednesday night and Thursday I had some sort of gastroenteritis and couldn't keep anything down. I had one solid meal on Friday. I suspect my fatigue especially during the run was in part a consequence of running out of calories to burn.


Didn't stay for post-race. I had no problems with race organization at all.