Cy-Man Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

I told my self that I wasn't going to hold anything back for this race. Its a sprint for crying out loud. I was stroking a lot harder than normal to start and it really messed up my breathing. I was having to breathe every other stroke. It took me forever to calm down and get into a rythm and by then the swim was pretty much over.

Stick to my normal stroke. Wear wetsuit (More on this later)

Not too bad. My new aero helmet tends to get a strap stuck behind my ear every time I put it on so I had to struggle with that for a few seconds.

Practice putting on helmet. Practice rubber banding shoes to pedals.

This was a pretty good bike for me. I was hoping to be a little faster, but I think I pushed myself fairly hard. I didn't get passed the entire time so I knew that was a good sign. Only had one problem making a turn. I came to an intersection and had no idea if I needed to go straight or turn. There was a volunteer standing in the middle of the road so that should have been a dead give away that I need to turn but he wasn't pointing in any direction. I finally figured it out almost too late and had to really brake to make the turn, almost running the volunteer over in the process. Man, i'm such an idiot some times. It probably only costed me a couple of seconds but in this race every second was going to count.

know the course

Pretty quick. Racked the bike, took off shoes and helmet, grabbed race belt and visor, and was off.

Learn to slip out of my shoes while still clipped in.

I felt pretty good off the bike and immediately started passing people. I felt strong, breathing a little heavy, but that can be expected since I really haven't done speed work for awhile. With about a mile left someone finally passed me. A quick glance at the calf told me it was a fellow 25-29er. I immediately thought this could be the difference between a podium spot (Is it considered a podium spot if its 3rd in your age group?) I focused on keeping up with the guy, telling myself I could outsprint him at the end. Then someone else passed me. Arggh! Another 25-29er. I yelled at myself to keep up, but I was starting to fade. My sprint to the finish wasn't enough to make up the ground I had lost. I finshed 5th in my age group, a mere 10 seconds behind third and 7 seconds behind 4th. Frustrating!!!!

Run Harder!!!

Walked for awhile and ate a banana.


Lack of speed training, slow transitions, poor swim. Perhaps I should have worn the wetsuit. In hindsight the time gains in the swim probably would have outweighed the time lost in stransition stripping down. Would that have made up the 10 seconds??? Hmmmm.....


I really wanted to finish top 3 in my age group and losing out on that by 10 seconds is really frustrating. I keep telling myself that this is my first year doing tris and I should be happy with my finsihes, but I am a competitor. One more tri left, then a marathon, and then a lot of work to do in the offseason :)