UCLA IronBruin Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I was really nervous/excited/anxious when I got in the pool and it really screwed up my breathing for the first lap and a half, I felt like I couldn't catch my breath at all, especially with 20 people in front of my churning things up. Things got much better by the 2nd lap when I started to feel warmed up and get in the rhythm, although by that point I was far behind the main pack. Wasn't really going for an amazing swim performance, I justed wanted to be out of the pool in 10 minutes before the next heat started, which I did, and I wasn't the last in my heat so I'm happy about that.

Not be nervous! :) If I had just relaxed and swam like I do when I train I would have been fine. Maybe I would have tried to get a few more swims in at a 50m pool so I had a better idea of what the distance would be like.

Took me a little while to find my bike since I was in one of the earlier heats and there were still a bunch of bikes there. Got my shoes and socks on pretty quickly (I biked in my running shoes), had trouble with the helmet since it didn't fit over my hair in a bun so I had to fix that.

Make a better mental note of where my bike is, fix my hair while I'm moving between the pool and my bike so I don't waste so much time. Or figure out a better way to do my hair.

Having gone to UCLA I had a little bit of an advantage with the course. I'd gone there a few times to do the hills and I was glad I did since I was able to bike all the way up them each time without stopping (ok there was a brief stop the second time so that I could get a drink of water). I saw Jocelyn a couple times and Dolores once and said hi to them. I'm not sure what my time was exactly but I'm pretty sure it was faster than when I did it alone, and the hills were easier by the 3rd and 4th laps which was great. I mostly got the shifting down so that I was in a more or less appropriate gear the whole time. I actually passed people which was amazing, since I think I was imagining me and 100 mini Lance Armstrongs. Overall I really enjoyed the ride, especially since I went in thinking it would be my worst event.

Maybe taken the downhills a little faster. Given my level of inexperience and the time I had to train I don't think there's anything I could have done differently

Biking in my running shoes definitely made this transition easy. Took off my helmet and gloves, had a drink of water and just started running.

Well hopefully someday I won't be riding in my running shoes, but generally I probably could have moved a little faster, but superfast transitions weren't really my goal for this race.

I grabbed the little cup of water they handed out at the beginning of the run a that was fine for me, I don't remember every really being thirsty. I felt slow at first coming off the bike but since the uphills were first in the run course I thought it was better to start slow and speed up once it eventually leveled off and turned downhill. Saw Matt, Dolores and Jocelyn on the run, never saw Yanti (she almost caught up with me that speed demon). Ran a lot faster than I thought I would, my actual chrono time was probably abour 30 seconds to a minute slower than 25:36 since I didn't start it until I was about halfway down the first stretch of the field. Even so it was a faster pace than I even usually do on my maintenance runs so I was very happy about that. Was winded by the time I got to the end so I couldn't run it in as fast as I wanted to but overall it felt like a great run.

UPDATE: turns out my chrono was more correct than I thought, officially my run was 25:39, which is super fast for me, yay!

More speed work probably, and I would have run the course beforehand. I thought since I'd gone to school there I had a good idea of what it would be like to run it, but I never actually ran around UCLA when I went there so it wasn't the same obviously. I thought the first uphill was shorter than it was since it goes so fast when you go down it on the bike.

Walked around the IM field/expo with my awesome roommate who came at the end to see me finish (she actually got there right as I finished). I told her it would probably take about 2 hours but thankfully she got there earlier than that (she said she knew it would take me less time that I thought, which I thought was a nice vote of confidence). Had a half a bagel and cream cheese and some orange energy drink stuff. Met up with Yanti when she finished, watched Jocelyn and Matt transition and saw them and Dolores finish.


General inexperience/nerves. I did better than I expected to so, so I think the only way I could have gone faster was more time/training.


I had a great time doing my first triathlon, the race was fun and organized (they could have used someone down by the parking structure but that was about it), the course was challenging, but doable and it was nice to be somewhere I was already familiar with. I think it was the perfect first race for me :).