What a horrible swim. I knew that swimming was my weakest sport but over the past couple of weeks, my swimming ability improved alot at the pool so I thought I would be okay. I can swim 200m freestyle continuously take 1 minute recovery on my back or breaststroke and repeat and that was going to be my strategy for the swim portion of the race. I don't think I did more than 25m without being completely winded. I had to resort to side stroke for the rest of the swim portion and even so I was barely catching my breath. A check on the heart rate monitor that I was wearing showed that I was averaging 155 bpm which really isn't all that fast and certainly shouldn't leave me feeling winded. Did I go out too fast? Is it because I didn't warm up at all? I don't know.

As a funny side note, when the "go" horn went off I waited at the right/back of my wave to let the faster swimmers ahead. I waited, and waited and waited some more wondering when everyone else was going to jump in the water. It wasn't until people were half way down to the first buoy that I realized that I was hanging around with the second wave. I probably lost a minute right there. What a newbie!


1) Clearly, I am very far behind when it comes to swimming and I need lots more pool time to improve in this discipline.

2) Start with my wave, not after it.

Not a bad transition at all. I was quite surprised at how smoothly it all went. My transition area was set up perfectly and everything worked like clockwork: foot rinse, sunglasses, helmet, race belt, another foot rinse, socks, right shoe, left shoe. Still winded, I walked to the bike mounting point. If I would have run to the T1 timing mat I'm sure I would have shaved another 10 seconds off.

Next time, I will dispense of the first foot rinse and do it just before I put on my socks, probably saving another 5 seconds or so.

The swim took a lot out of me and though my performance on the bike portion was good, I know I could have done better if only I wasn't completely spent. I did make up a lot of places on the bike portion. Saying "on the left" over and over sure helped to boost my confidence. I stayed in the aero position for most of the right but could have stayed in it even longer.

Need to practice my mounting and dismounting so that I can jump on and off the bike instead of stopping to get on and off.

I thought this transition went equally smooth to the first one but the time just isn't showing that. I'm pretty sure it's because I didn't run into and out of transition and not because of the cycling to running shoe changeover. I think having everything laid out as well as I did in transition helped tremendously.

Run.

As with the bike segment, the horrible performance in the swim portion really affected my overall performance. Though my normal 5K pace is 5m 38s/km, my 2.5km pace was dreadfully slower. Took some water at the first station and immediately got light stomach cramps which went away in about a minute.

One disconcering thing that happened is that at a HR of about 170bmp, I started to get a wheezy sounding inhale. I've maintained an 170bmp HR for long periods during training and never had wheezing before. I'm not sure if it was the high temperatures or perhaps the air quality. Whatever it was it impacted me and as a result I had to slow down and walk a couple of times to catch my breath.

Train outdoors more especially in the heat. Practice taking water during the run.

Lots of hugs from my wife! Kept moving for a couple of minutes and took in some water.


I definitely should have warmed up before the race with a quick jog and maybe even a light swim.

My pre race nutrition (3 days before the race) was horrible. I over ate and generally for dinner I ate the wrong things. What was I thinking?


This was my first triathlon. As a result of the horrible swim segment I found this to be a lot more difficult that I had imagined. Still, I was proud of myself for finishing.

Race photos can be found here - http://www.pbase.com/ctenche/binbrook_triathlon_2006