New Jersey State Triathlon - Sprint Distance - TriathlonSprint

I never got to do an open water swim workout, so I was a little nervous that I might freak out.
I tried to maintain the crawl the whole time but I kept running into people and got fatigued quickly. Then alternated crawl, above-water breast stroke, proper breast stroke, and side stroke (thank you homeschool swim and gym!) until I got to the turn buoy.

After that everyone spread out more and I got into a rhythm doing proper-form breast stroke. I was going to try to switch to crawl but I realized I was passing a few people and felt a lot more comfortable with breast stroke. It's always been my strongest. So I went with it and ended up with a surprising 715 rank.

Train more. Either get faster doing crawl or do breast stroke the whole way.

Jelly-legs going up the boat ramp and grassy hill to transition. My husband and sister were there cheering me on, so that helped.

I took my time since the swim wore me out. My shirt was really difficult to get into.

Speed up a little. Wear a race belt instead of shirt.

I went into the bike feeling like I needed to save my legs for the run, so I took it easy for the first few miles. I was passed by a lot of people. In the second half I felt able to pick it up, so I passed a couple of people myself.

I was too scared to let go of the handle bars to hydrate properly. Also the cars were a little to close for comfort. I had trouble with most of the turns: I just didn't practice them enough.

Still I did better than my 60 minute worst case scenario.

Learn to drink water on the bike. Train more on roads instead of on bike trails so that I am more comfortable riding with cars and other cyclists. Practice right-angle turns.

Nothing exciting with this transition.

Practice so that I can dismount faster and run faster with bike.

I walked more than I wanted to, but I think I needed it. My calves were really tired from the bike.

People were very encouraging, so that helped.

The last mile, the heat got bad and I wished I had held on to my cooling rag. I was able to pick up the pace into the finish chute.

Resist the urge to walk.

Walked around a little. The free buffet line was huge and it was hot, so we went home and then out to lunch after I had a shower.


Didn't train enough. Opening my business in May made me miss out on almost a whole month of training. In June and July I never got back to the volume of training days from March and April.


I had a lot of fun.

The post-race feeling was more exhilarating than my 5k run last September which was sort of anticlimactic. I think because I had never done all the distances of all the sports together, so there was an immediate sense of accomplishment.