Toyota Desert Triathlon - Sprint Distance - TriathlonSprint

I went down and got in the water a couple minutes before my wave start, swam a 100 yards or so. I came back up and stood around waiting for the family to arrive, saw them just before I had to get going, that helped a lot. They blew the horn and I did my ten count before I started. I did not realize that with the chip my time did not start until I crossed the mat, I was stressing the extra time (not that I was going for the podium), so it was cool that I did not have to worry about that. I had my best OWS here in the race. The day before and the weekend before were pretty much disasters, I felt a little less confident after each one, but really glad I did both. I took one elbow the the side of the head, but outside of that was able to avoid getting kicked in the face. I navigated really well and felt pretty good in the water. I stopped for a few tread breaks but I was really happy with how it went. I was able to get my wetsuit down to my waist ok out of the water, but the swim cap was all kinds of stuck to my head, finally got it off though. I have never used a swim cap before and did not realized it would be part of the swim.

More swim training, more OWS, stay with my form longer.

Guessing on the time here, I really wish they had the times up though. This was the easiest that I have ever gotten the wetsuit off. In every practice I have had it stuck to my leg/ankle. In T1 it seemed to slide right off. Used a ton of body glide, did not use any in my practices, must have helped. Seemed like it took forever to get my shoes on, helmet on, glasses on, gloves on, etc.

Much more practice on all aspects of T1.

My feet were freezing through the whole bike ride. I hit a big pot hole right out of transition really hard and was sure I was going to flat, but I didn't. Tried to enjoy the scenery as I was peddling away, tried to keep it up around 20 mph the whole time. I was able to get down my gel even though it was almost a solid by the time I got to it, it was a little cool in the morning. I was able to stay in the big ring the whole time after I got out of the short climb out of transition. I passed quite a few people on the ride, doubt any of them were in my AG though. Just before getting back to transition on the bike I heard a pop and a rush of air exiting a tire. I thought for sure it was mine because it sounded so close. So I got up and started to ride as hard as I could so I could make it back to the transition area before it went flat. Later I would find that my tires were fine. Somebody got a flat right next to me, hope they made it in ok.

Not much, just get in more training on the bike. I was happy with my performance here, will need to try to get faster though.

I can't believe it took me two minutes to drop my bike and get my running shoes and race belt on. It did not seem like it was that long. Although I did hand off the good camera to the family, that did not help.

I was expecting a much better time here, need to work on this a lot more.

Had a wicked stomach cramp coming off the bike and about half way into the run. Need to figure out this cramping thing. Got passed by more people than I passed. I was not feeling very strong at this point. Tried to put on a little burst toward the end but I was dead, I wanted to catch a guy in my age group that had passed me, couldn't do it. Coasted into the finish.

I have to work on my running. I have not researched any aspect of improving my run performance. Running for me is a close second for my worst aspect of triathlon, the swim. Oh well, bright side is I have a lot of room for improvement.

Got past the finish line and saw the family, hit the food area, walked around a bit, ate, then stretched some. They had some crazy sugar filled food, danishes, coffee cake, etc.


Could have trained more/harder.


I had a great time. I kind of felt like this was my first "real" triathlon, my first was a mini-sprint and had the pool swim. It felt really good to get through the OWS and perform well on the bike. I kind of had a goal to get into the top 20 in my age group. I went over the results from last year and was shooting for 1:33 to get into the top 20. Since I have not done any sprint distances before I was just going off the 1:33 as my goal. I feel very satisfied to come in 12th. I think next year my goal will be to crack the top ten.