Life Time Fitness Triathlon - Sprint - TriathlonSprint

I love this course, and this venue, but I made a couple of tactical decisions on this part of the course that had impact throughout the remainder of the event.

First, I waffled for a day and a half about whether or not to wear my wetsuit for the swim. It's a little small for me right now, and hindsight being 20/20 I should not have worn it. The water was cool, but not cold, and becuase the suit is a little tight on me right now, it tended to pull down on my shoulders making me have to work harder to swim. That fatigued me some, and even this morning (Sunday) as I write this I can feel the stiffness in my shoulders that I don't normally get after this short of a swim.

But, the dcecision was made to wear it, nothing I can do about it now, but learn from the experience.

I did have a small amount of trouble sighting and tended to pull to the left (away from the course) in my swim. I seemed to get it back under control toward the end of the swim.

I was pleased with my exit from the water. I swam in until I was clawing at the sand on the bottom and then I stood up. This strategey was something I learned from the last time I did this race, and that helped a lot


Hindsight being 20/20 I would definately NOT worn my wetsuit. Water temp, while cool, was perfectly comfortable. At least 40 percent or so of the participants did not wear one. I wish I hadn't, because I'm confident that my overall race performance was impacted negatively because I did. If I did wear one again, I would like a sleeveless for this event.

This transition was terrible. Mainly because of the wetsuit. They did not have strippers on the beach and so you were on you own to get the suit off. Not that that is bad, because generally, I prefer to take my suit off on my own, but I could have used some help for this one.

I really struggled to get out of my suit, first getting it off my shoulders was really tough, then it stuck on my ankles as well.

I also had a small problem with my bike shoes in that one of the straps came out and I had a hard time getting it back in.

This was NOT a pretty transition

The wetsuit was the biggest issue I dealt with today, and I'm convinced it cost me 5-10 minutes on my overall performance today.

Lose the wetsuit, or get into one that fits me better.

This was my best portion of the race today (maybe all that time in a spin class is paying off). My goal was to average 16-17 miles per hour, and that's exactly what I did. I had to work hard to keep that pace, but it felt good.

I enjoyed thanking the officers and volunteers as I rode past them. I do apprecitate them out there on the course.

I had to keep reminding myself to "just enjoy the ride", and keep pushing on. And I did that. The first 5 miles seem to take forever, but after that I got into a groove and started to improve. My placing on the bike was my highest placing of the day.

Hydrate better. Something I've never done well. Learn to take better advantage of the downhill portions of the course and capitalize on those.
Anticipate climbs better so I don't bleed off so much pace on the hills.

This transition was a bit closer to my normal transition. I did take my shoes off before running through transtion, but I didn't take them off while I was still on the bike.

Overall, starting to feel pretty good fatigue, and was just slow

I've really got to learn to get my feet out of my shoes before transition. It would help a lot.

This run was interesting that I had strength (at least I felt I did) but I never really got my running legs under me until about 2 miles in. My 3rd mile was the best of the day, so I was excited about that. I walked a lot on this run, way more than I should have let myself, but I was hammered. Pleased that I did run mile 3 faster than the other two!




Stay intensely focused. Push through the pain. Manage walking more.

Got to the finish, Mrs. UTTriman was there at the side as I approached the finish line, Gave her a high five as I passed by and finished as strong as I could.

Got the cold towel that they pass out at the finish (one of the best 'perks' of this event) and draped it around my neck, proceeded to the nearest garbage can and puked!!

Walked it off as best I could, met up with the gang, and resumed my 'rightful place as the cow's tail! '







My weight, and overall condition. I'm really frustrated with how hard I've been training, and the weight isn't coming down and my endurance is off. I'm going to try a couple of new things here in the next few weeks to see what I can do.

I also, if I'm honest, didn't expect to perform terribly well in this race. I knew I could do it, but mentally didn't have my 'winner' game face on. So even though I was excited to be here, and have absolutely NO regrets about the race, I wasn't ready mentally to push myself through it as strong as I could have.

I also feel that using the wetsuit impacted my performance for the day in a big way. I know it cost me 5-10 minutes overall.




I love this race. It's generally pretty well organized (There are some opportunities for improvement, but it's good none the less) and it's a lot of fun to watch the pro's!

Weather conditions for today were as close to perfect as they could get for a race. Take away a couple miles an hour of wind (there wasn't much to begin with anyway) and increase the water temp 3-4 degree's and you'd have had a PERFECT race condition in my opinion.

I'm anxious now to go home, train hard and comeback next year and kick this race in the butt again. Comparing this race to the race 3 years ago, well, I shows what I'm capable of, and how far off my game I've gotten. No worries though, I came to this race today to have fun, be with my friends, and enjoy myself, all of which I accomplished. Could I have done better, absolutely, but I'm not letting it get me down in any way. I had fun, and learned much, and I'm ready to get back at it for next year!