Bartlett Lake Tri - April 2016

This race is great - I did the OLY in October and it was wetsuit legal, but I swam without one. I think in the spring it's MUCH colder, so just depends what your cold tolerance is like. I think last year it rained in the Spring and it rained on us in October.

I chose to use my road bike and glad I did. Both the bike AND run have crazy climbs, which were kinda fun IMO and going down was a blast. And with the OLY you get to do the bike course 2x. It's not closed to traffic unfortunately, but we didn't have any issues.
The run out of transition is very steep and the first mile is all uphill, then some rollers. Then you turn around and go back up and back DOWN to the finish. The down hill killed me, I've never been so sore after a OLY race than this one! Get some downhill running practice. I never let off the gas because I knew I was in first place and the 2nd place girl was right behind me, so pushed it on the downhill more than I would have ordinarily. It did start POURING on us towards the end of the bike and most of the run…kinda comical actually but adds to the experience. It was the most rewarding 1st place overall finish I've had …and the only one ;-)! The field will probably be much larger since lots of people are looking for races!

I'd definitely recommend this race as long as you train for climbing both up and down. Make sure it is in a good place on your race calendar though. Depending on how you race it, it can be brutal - but GORGEOUS and such a great change from TTL.

Oh, and the race company is super awesome but very small and no frills at all! They even misspelled a word on the t-shirt/awards etc. lol!
BRING A HEADLAMP to transition because there are no lights - this was the best advice someone gave me! Bring flip flops for the trip down to the lake and back. You will be running in the sand and UP the stairs to transition.

Good luck!