Parvin State Park Sprint Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

One of these days I'm going to be able to write in one of these that I was able to complete one of these just like it was training. Started near the back of the pack as I wanted to remain calm and find open water. Started off good with both my stroke and breathing to the 1st buoy. As I kept looking up to find the buoy for the turn I started to lose my stroke some and for some reason was never really ever to regain any kind of normal form. I took a break or two in order to try and gather myself but it was no use. Seemed like it took forever to get to the next big buoy with turned us back towards shore. At that point I made up my mind to just put my head down and swim as best I could into shore but even that felt awful. Stood up as soon as I could and ran into shore and that was the only time I passed anyone :).

I think I need a psychiatrist at this point. No idea why I can't carry over the confidence from training to the race. Gotta find the time to get in some OWS which won't be easy to do. Might sign up for a Splash and Dash on a weeknight in July.

This was my 1st race with clip on shoes and decided to not leave the shoes on the bike so it took some time to get them on. I actually was happy with my actual transition as it was in the top half of the times and it included some lost time as right before I hit the mat a volunteer noticed that my chain was off so I stopped and got it back on (probably 20 sec's or so). After that I was able to clip in and get going quickly.

Check my chain after everything is set up in transition.

Good bike for me. I was able to clip in and get going fast and was passing quite a few people which is one of the benefits of blowing up during the swim :). My legs were feeling pretty good and I stayed in 1 gear for most of the race only switching on the downhills in order to take advantage of them. I probably would've hit my 20 mph average goal if I hadn't spent way too much time trying to loosen my shoes so I could just jump off the bike. I lost speed probably 3 to 4 times why I tried to get set for the dismount. May just keep the shoes on my feet next time and change out of them in T2.

Practice keeping my speed and getting out of the shoes more during training.

I felt like I had a good transition but it was in the bottom half so I need to work on moving quicker and getting out of there faster.

Just move, move, move faster!!!

This was by almost 2 minutes my slowest 5k I've ever run. As I left transition I felt slow right away. I've had that feeling before but usually you are moving faster than you think but the bike legs make it feel slow. In this case I was really going slow. When I got out to the park paved roads I tried to pick it up but just couldn't get moving. I was being passed by some people which is somewhat rare for me in a Tri as most of the fast folks are already ahead of me after the swim/bike. I decided to take some water at the 1 mile mark which I don't usually do in a 5K. I walked through in order to drink some. When I started back up it still felt incredibly slow. At the half way point my watch was almost 14 minutes which was incredibly discouraging. I decided to just put my head down and give it all I had the 2nd half. About 1/4 mile from the end you go through 2 fields so I started to pick it up some more when a female voice behind me started saying "Don't let me catch you!". I thought that's a good idea so I told her to go ahead and try but "you won't get past me!". I basically sprinted the last 200 yards or so and was able to stay ahead of her. My 2nd half of the run was just over 12 minutes which is better but didn't really help in the grand scheme of things.

Not sure as I haven't had that dead of legs in a run before.

Was a bit winded from my sprint but saw Jay right past the finish line. He mentioned that he was over 24 for his 5k which made me feel better (maybe it was measured long?) as Jay is usually at 23 or under.


Lack of mental toughness in the water. I need to get over this and set a positive tone for a race.


2nd year in a row I've done this race and I do enjoy it. I will be back next year to take care of that lake!