UCLA IronBruin Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Good swim, I went out maybe a little hard, but there were a bunch of people in front of my that I wanted to pass. It was a little difficult passing within the lanes while also having to switch over to the next lane, but by the 3rd or 4th length I'd passed everyone in range and was able to swim freely, which was nice. Ended up in a bit of a bottleneck right at the end but I don't think it slowed me too much.

Nothing

Didn't realize this was so slow. I wasted some time trying to put gloves on but then I just gave up, shouldn't have bothered at all, I didn't notice my hands being cold. Also wasted some time shoving everything into my transition bag so they could take it down for me.

Not bother with gloves in a sprint, probably not bother with socks either.

I think I could have taken this a little harder, I was hoping for more improvement from last year (I did shave 10 minutes off though). But my hills were way better, I'm actually able to get out of the saddle and climb now which helped in the last big hill on the loop. I didn't have to stop on any of the hills and I wasn't gasping for air like I was last year. This was my first tri ever last year and I didn't even have clipless pedals then so huge difference there. I only got passed by guys and I did a fair amount of passing of people myself, but I didn't really push myself on the flat parts/slight downhills and I think I could have made up some time there.

Push myself more, it was a sprint so I didn't need to conserve that much energy.

Ugh, this transition was frustrating because the two bikes on each side of me had their handlebars and cables crossed and stuck on each other so I know I wasted a bunch of time moving them so I could get my damn bike racked. As usual I could probably put the Yankz I have on my shoes but I never remember. Super frustrating because the girl one ahead of me in my AG only beat me by about 13 seconds and w/o this crap I could have beaten her (not that it matters, of course :), I'm just sayin').

Just put my bike somewhere else on the rack where it was free.

This was a pretty good run, I was able to pace myself well enough to not die on all the little uphills. Maybe could have pushed myself a bit harder but I could feel my lungs not wanting to handle that. My best 5k time is only about 30 seconds faster than this and I was about a minute per mile faster this year than last so I can't complain too much.

Walked around the expo, got my free FRS and some food. They even had chipotle burritos while I was leaving which was AWESOME, good grub here. My roommate came out again, didn't see me actually finish since she got thrown off by DST but at least she was there. This was my first time racining without anybody I really knew :(. After awards and raffle and such went back to my bike and met Todd (TCovert) and his wife as they were leaving too, it's always nice to meet another BT-er in person.


General fitness, not pushing myself quite hard enough. I'm used to longer distances now so I lean towards the conservative effort side.


I have to say this is a pretty organized race for college students (UCLA is my alma mater and love it though I do there's still only so much you can expect from college kids), with a good expo and good food for a small race. Like that they have free pics on Flickr too. Transitions were a little crazy and hopefully someday they'll find a way to hold the swim that's not kind of weird.

I really wanted to do this race since it was my first tri ever and I wanted to see how far I've come (didn't hurt either that it was cheap, close and I knew the course well), and as a mini warmup for Oceanside. Wasn't quite as much improvement as I would have liked, but again, I did hold myself back a little. Plus I'm happy because my confidence level is just so much higher now, there was no freaking out in the swim, my bike handling skills are better and overall I just felt more comfortable because I know myself better athletically, if that makes sense?

Double bonus, in addition to getting a $15 road id gift certificate for 3rd place, I also won the raffle I entered and got a $100 certificate to roadrunners towards a pair of running shoes and a nathan water bottle w/ handstrap.