BT Forum

Originally posted by ghettoflow21

What a great first experience! I'm not sure if this is the right place to have a recap, but i'll put it here.

The swim was definitely the most difficult part of the Tri, it was a wave start for all men 39 and under. The water was definitely cold, but nowhere near as cold as the SF Bay water! My sighting for the swim was awful. If I went more than 4 breaths without stopping to look up I would be pointing completely away from the buoy! This is definitely something that I need to work on for my next tri. However, I felt like my fitness was good enough for the swim. I finished with a time of 24 minutes. Not bad for someone who learned how to swim 3 months ago!

Luckily with the earplugs I didn't experience any type of vertigo coming out of the water, which was a great relief to me! The first transition I definitely didn't have any sense of urgency, and kinda took a break, walking to the bike and toweling off before I started my bike. Unfortunately I completely forgot to put my timing chip back on, but I wouldn't be surprised if that transition was 7-10 min.

The bike ride in retrospect was pretty easy, and I definitely should have pushed myself a lot more, although my legs just weren't there for it. Cardio/lung capacity wise I didn't have a trouble on the bike, but I could definitely tell that I didn't train at all for the bike once I got off of it! My feet were completely numb the entire bike ride, most likely due to the swim. No time on the bike as I did not have the chip on.

The second transition was much faster, as I had the tri shorts on and just changed shoes. However, I did go the wrong way, back to the bike out instead of the run out, which was on the complete opposite side of the transition area! Whoops! I started off the run way too fast. My friend was pacing me and she suggested I slow down, which I definitely did. I was running purely on adrenaline. After the first half mile, my quads started to cramp up, but I was luckily able to run through it and completed the 3 mile run in 27 minutes.

My overall time was 1:58, which I was okay with considering my lack of dedicated training and lackadaisical transitions. Thank you all for the advice, it really helped! My buddy and I signed up for the HIM for the same location for next year (they had a huge discount, so why not?) and an Olympic at the end of August, I think I'm hooked! The whole experience was great and can't wait to train more religiously and see the improvements!