CSTS Charleston Sprint Triathlon Series - Race #1 - TriathlonSprint

I was worried about the swim because of a shoulder injury after falling off my MTN bike on 6/5. The wet suit really helped with support and I was able to swim basically pain free.
We started in waves and my age group (35-40) was the last group. I litterally ran over the top of a couple stragglers from the previous groups. My goal was to keep on the feet of a buddy that I know is a good swimmer. I lost his feet and basically ended up swimming on my own.

My swim has gotten a lot better, and I actually felt like I swam faster than my time indicated. Overall, when I got out of the water I felt good was able to transition to the bike without much difficulty. I still need to work on technique and building speed.

For this race they do not give time splits for transition. Once you come out of the water you cross the timing mat to get a swim time and the time spent in transition is added on to the total bike time. I always forget to hit the split time on my watch to get the time spent in transition. I didn't have any major mishaps in transition so I feel good overall.

For whatever reason my bike computer decided not to work once on the bike course and my GPS (timex speed/distance) doesn't pick up very well while moving. I rode much of the first half of the race by perceived effort. By in the last wave to leave I was passing tons of people, but a lot of those people were riding hybrids, mountain bikes, beach cruisers, etc. About a quarter of the way into the bike I picked up a GPS signal on my watch, and I was happy to see I was cruising along around 22.5 mph. For the last half of the race I tried to keep the my speed b/w 22 and 23 MPH.

Fix my bike computer. I was never passed on the bike and felt good about my bike. I think I would have gone a little faster if the computer would have been working but only by a small amount so all is good.

Once again the total bike time includes the transition time and I didn't hit the split button. The only mishap in t2 came when a guy to my right decided to cut in front of me at the dismont line. I crashed the front wheel of my bike into this back wheel. I gave hime my best "DUDE?!" and kept going.

Continue to practice qick transitions.

The first mile I felt pretty strong. My first mile split was around 7:10. After the first mile the sun and heat started taking it's toll on me. Wouldn't you know the only time I was passed during the race was by a person in my age group during the last 3/4 of the race.

I will continue to work on my endurance for the 1/2 IM. I also want to continue to build on speed work that I started a couple of weeks ago.

Ate some orange slices, drank some gatorade, drank a diet coke, laid on the ground.


I was hoping to come in sub 1:10:30, but the race was a course PR for me so I was pleased. I would like to push the swim a little more, and push the run a little harder on the 2nd race of the series on 7/6/2008


I love this race series. We are able to stay at the beach house and it only takes me 15 minutes to get to the race site. It's a flat hard race that's over in an hour, and you have the rest of your day to play on the beach!