A friend that is a better swimmer than me was racing too, so I lined up behind him with the idea of drafting. When we went out I stayed on his feet for about 100 yds, but then I could not hold the pace and lost him. My arms got tired pretty fast, it may have been a better strategy just to swim relaxed the whole way.

The swim time includes a ridiculous run to the transition area! We had to run 0.3 miles to get there, which took me almost 2:30 minutes, and drained my energy for the bike. I should have run slower too!

Not going out too fast.

Smooth transition, I did not sue a flying mount, but at this point I have decided to not bother with that one until I am a threat to winning my age group.

Nothing

This is the part of the race in which I came up short. I did this same bike segment 5 months ago in a duathlon after running a 5k for the first leg and went 2 minutes faster on the bike. The run to transition and the headwind on the way out really drained my energy, and about 3 miles in I had to switch gears to an easier one. At mile 6 or so, I went up a gear again to try to recover lost time but it was not enough.

Save the legs on the run to transition.

Smooth, no jumping off the bike, but fine based on what I was aiming for.

Nothing.

Since I went pretty hard the last 4 miles on the bike, when I started to run I was feeling miserable. Still, I knew that after a mile or so I would start feeling better, so I pushed through it. The main challenge was that the first half of the run was on sand with a pretty strong headwind. I held up reasonably OK and then when we turned around and got to the pavement was able to sped up and finish strong.

Not much I could do different, just train my run better, since I need to gain some speed in this area.

Not much, just walked a bit and waited for my co-worker to finish. After getting home I stretched, took a shower and went for a massage.


Poor planning. I am doing the second race in the series next month in the exact same course, I am planning on going easier on the swim and run to transition and see what that means for the bike and run.


The organization of the race was pretty bad. When I got to the beach at 6:30 (race started at 7) there was no buoys in place. The race director was running from one place to the other trying to start the Olympic race (btw, the distances of the Olympic are not even close to accurate), then the duathlon and then the sprint. They had the issue with one of the buoys drifting off to sea. Besides that, there were ony a couple of kayaks in the course. It's not an issue for me since I am a swimmer and I feel secure in the water, but if it was my first tri and was worried about the swim, it would be a problem. There were several people at the end too complaining about clear of signs on the bike course. Hope they improve for the next race.