Wildman Triathlon Festival - Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Horrible swim. I really should have warmed up before the start. The first 50 yards I polo stroked as I usually do and as soon as I went to my normal stroke, it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest and my wetsuit felt like a Python constricting me. I could not catch my breath. I swallowed a mouthful of water which made it worse. I flipped over to try and catch my breath but even on my back I was hyperventilating. I tried breaststroke but had the same result. I looked around and saw that I was dead last in my wave. I looked for a kayak and decided to go back into shore which made me feel very angry and I yelled out either aloud or to myself "You've got to be f*cking kidding me"; referring to the fact that my typical swim workouts are 3000 yards and here I was dead in the water after 100. The anger moved me to keep going. I flailed past the first buoy and by the 400 yard mark, got into that elusive zone 3 and was able to have a semi normal swim the rest of the way albeit little if any kicking. I managed to re-pass 20 or 30 folks on my way in but the time damage was done. I guess I'm glad I stuck it out and finished. Had I managed my normal training pace I should have been out of the water at 17' so I figure I lost about 5-6.

Pre-race warm up...alot of pre-race warm up.

Guessing on T1 time since the genius RD failed to post any transition times in the final results (WTF?). Only the T time from waters edge to transition area (a long jog) is posted, but not actual time in T area is posted. Are you kidding me? My time to get from waters edge to T was 3:05 and I'm guessing I was in T for 2:30.

Happy with time on this leg. Well above my training pace of 18's. Pushed it to try and make up for bad swim and felt good going into the run.

Nothing.

An estimation.

REALLY happy with run time!! This is the first time I have run in over a month because of back problems. I have not trained AT ALL this past month and to break 10 is just awesome for me.

Nothing.

Walked around and met up with fellow BTers. Had a couple slices of pizza, chatted a bit, then headed back to hotel to check out.


Not a ton of training over the past month due to injury.


I did not register for this race until the day before so I was not planning nor prepping for it. Except the lost 5 mins in the water, I did really well and my back held up just fine.